Hidden assets The
seamless integration of lighting into design concepts sparks
innovation and infinite creative potential, says Paul Nulty
Above ESPA, Waldorf Astoria Lusail, Doha. Lighting design by Nulty
IT’S NATURAL for designers to want to push boundaries. We build on each other’s ideas and principles in a collaborative way, and we explore diff erent techniques to bring something original and innovative to our designs. For the lighting designer, this means fi nding new ways to use light.
Back in the beginning this wasn’t the case. Our practice was built on tangible objects, and shaped by products and the eff ect of light that they produce in a space. But over the years we’ve fi nessed our approach, and refocused our eff orts towards integration – the interplay of architecture, design and lighting design. It’s changed the way that we visualise schemes and brought about a blurring of boundaries that makes it hard to see where one discipline begins and the other ends.
‘Our love aff air with integration has been a slow burn; the LED revolution just ignited the flame and gave us much better tools to work with’
Logic would dictate that the advent of LED technology prompted the transition from an objective to subjective approach to design, but our work has been rooted in the art of integration for longer than we think. Designers who are old enough to remember xenon lamps will recall how they were specifi ed for cove details, and will no doubt have used T2 compact fl uorescent fi ttings to illuminate shelving. T e truth is that our love aff air with integration has been a slow burn; the LED revolution just ignited the fl ame and gave us much better tools to work with. As our products have become smaller and smaller, good lighting designers have jumped on this trend in all manner of weird and wonderful ways. Miniaturised light sources have made their way into columns, coves, beams, recesses and niches, as we’ve honed our craft and become adept at concealing light within the architectural features of a building.
We’ve also explored a multitude of ways to integrate light into design features such as shelves, stairways, handrails and mirrors. Working in this way creates a more free-fl owing dialogue between creatives. It’s also helped to make lighting design an integral part of the solution, not something that you bolt on as an afterthought.
Now that the trend for integration has gathered momentum, designers are becoming emboldened by the creative possibilities. We’re seeing some brilliantly ambitious concepts, where lighting design is so seamlessly embedded into a scheme that the fi xtures cease to be physical products – they literally become a piece of architecture or a decorative focal point. It’s a continually evolving method of design that varies according to the creative and the context, and rests on the lighting designer’s ability to use light in a holistic way. While integration is giving us huge scope for creativity and taking us in all kinds of directions that we never thought possible, there’s a lot more to it than making a space look pretty. It’s a collaborative process that rests on the sharing of ideas and cross-discipline expertise. It also requires you to have an almost obsessive knowledge of light because the devil is most defi nitely in the detail. Integrating light into architecture requires you to understand how that space has been physically constructed. And placing a light source in a relatively small space can’t be achieved unless you understand the electrical and spatial constraints that you’re up against. You also need to be able to future-proof a design to build in provision for access and maintenance, and have a plan for what happens when a product comes off the market and needs to be replaced. T is is where a lighting designer’s expertise comes into play. Our industry has evolved since the days of those xenon lamps and fl uorescent light sources. We occupy a diff erent space today, at the nexus of architecture, design, engineering, and electronics. T is ability to look across diff erent fi elds and pull together the diff erent strands of a scheme is exactly what’s required to deliver the exquisite level of detailing that goes hand in hand with a beautifully integrated project. -
Paul Nulty is the founder of independent lighting consultant Nulty
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