036
DETAILS [lighting talk]
Each issue we speak to an architect about their relationship with light. This issue we talk to Charles Rose.
COULD YOU TELL ME...
... what made you become an architect? I grew up going to one of these Rudolf Steiner schools. They’re oriented around the arts. When I decided to go to college, I went to Princeton in physics, which I thought would be interesting. I always thought that I would do something in alternative energy. On a lark, in my second year, I took an architectural design class. I was just having a lot more fun, so I ended up deciding to pursue architecture.
... how important lighting is to your architecture? Lighting is critical to our buildings, which are quite sculptural. Part of how we use lighting is to accentuate the sculptural quality of our work. We are looking for this integration between artificial lighting and the forms of the building and to enhance the forms of the building, for example on the Admissions Center at Brandeis University [in Waltham, Massachusetts]. We’re also accentuating the legibility of function through lighting.
... what excites you about light and lighting? We’re very excited about some of the effects we can now achieve with LEDs. The ability to wash a wall now to create even lighting without hotspots, these are great things, because they allow us to focus on the architectural elements. In a way the lighting can recede as objects. Now you can create these very luminous environments, like the Art House penthouse in St.Louis. What also excites me about lighting is the way it can be so integrated into a scheme now. We could never find fixtures that went well with buildings. With LED strips, like those used in the ceilings of the OCAC, Drawing, Painting, and Photography Building in Portland, there’s just much more, in the way of possibilities, for
Pic: © Vanderwarker Pic: © John Linden us to design lighting that is suited to our buildings.
... why spending time thinking about and working with light is important to you? We’re trying to harvest as much natural light as we can... We harvest as much daylight as possible because that really is such a wonderful environment to work in.
... about how you approach lighting a building through architecture?
Clearstories and skylights, we do a lot of that, like in the Performing Arts Center, The Putney School, in Vermont. Often our ceiling openings will conceal lighting in a light tray on one side of the opening, or both sides. We might uplight a space, so that you don’t lose it in the darkness at night, but it actually becomes a bright spot. Often when you have a ceiling opening or a clearstorey, the concept of the design is that it’s the source of light. Yet at night it’s all black. So it’s always a trick how to create the skylight in a way that it’s also a glowing element at night.
Someone here in the office spearheads our lighting, and we also do work with outside lighting designers. I love working with new lighting designers. Every lighting designer has a few tricks up their sleeve that are terrific. So we’ve learned a lot from lighting designers. It’s made our lighting better and better.
... about the role lighting plays in the life of a city? And through your work, how do you contribute to it? Bright lights, big city. The lighting can be a real boon. There’s often much more night life. We often find that the identity of building in
Pic: © Alise O’Brien
Pic: © John Linden
Pic: © John Linden
Pic: © Alise O’Brien
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