072 DESIGN SEMINAR
Right Paul Traynor, principal at Light Bureau
Below left The Little Book of Colour by Karen Haller and The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair
THE DISCUSSION kicked off with the history of colour and its application to class in early renaissance paintings, and how the preciousness and huge cost of some colours were only reserved for divinity and royalty. And with the discovery of synthetic colour dyes in 1850, it has eff ectively blown the barn doors wide open with colour choices across all products and interiors. T e starting point was to consider lighting which, after all, can have a signifi cant bearing on how we see the colours in front of us. So, which is the star of the show? FX editor and chair of the discussion, T eresa Dowling, pointed out: ‘You can have the best fi nishes, colours, surfaces and materials in a project and it all counts for nothing if the lighting is no good. I think lighting designers have probably earned their spurs over the past 20 years – I never really understood how architects and designers managed without them because lighting design is not something you would learn at art school. Perhaps people now respect the skills of a lighting designer.’ Paul Traynor, principal at Light Bureau, added: ‘It’s defi nitely a lot more established. I set up Light Bureau in 1999 and that was still fairly early days. Back then, it wasn’t a given that you would appoint a lighting designer to your project, but it’s much more common now. In fact, if there’s a project of any worth, it
‘Some clients right now are striving for carbon net zero, and part of that carbon equation is getting the building to work harder through colour.’ Paul Traynor
is unusual for it to not involve a lighting designer, so it has come a long way.’ Conceding the creative lead does not always come easily to some, but understanding the role of lighting can be integral in the overall impact that a building or internal space can have. Traynor gave the example of Herzog & de Meuron’s Signal Box at Basle Station, which is designed so that during the daytime it is hard to see any kind of openings, but at night it reveals itself through its thin windows, with the light glowing outwards. ‘T ey’ve achieved that lighting eff ect pretty much solely with the architecture,’ said Traynor. ‘T ey’ve understood how to make that happen. ‘But we have worked with a lot of architects who don’t want to see lighting intervene. T ey regard it as a kind of corruption of their project, or as a risk that the lighting could turn it into something else. We do respect that position. We’re very much from a curated perspective; we don’t want to overwhelm the project. We want people to like a project, but not like it just because the lighting is so good. We don’t necessarily want lighting to be at the very front of built experiences, but we do want to support those objectives with our skills.’
Abby Connor, managing director at Hop Interiors, agrees that lighting can really enhance the use of colour in a project, but sees no issue with it sometimes being at the forefront. ‘I work in interiors but I love lighting and I think it is such a strong prospect that you can really value a beautiful light fi tting and the way it not only enhances the colour of the space, but also just the feeling of the textures and the way it bounces the light of diff erent items; it can make the whole space feel a lot more tactile.
‘You don’t really get that if you don’t have the right lighting. I freely admit, when I fi rst started out, I did not know a lot about lighting. I might walk into a space and notice that the lighting is too cold and it made me feel quite stressed, but mainly the work was more to do with the prettiness and aesthetics of things rather than necessarily the lighting
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