Lighting Projects

My lighting design philosophy

Sometimes a project requires the creation of one or more custom light fixtures. I have designed many of these during my career. You'll see examples of that in these projects.

In other projects, my lighting design approach is to use ready-made fixtures as unobtrusively as possible -- thereby letting the architecture speak for itself.

Some architectural lighting designers always insist on a project having custom fixtures. That puts their "stamp" on a project. That is not my philosophy!

My goal is always to create a solution that is appropriate for the project in question. If that means using lighting that is totally concealed from view and only highlights the architecture, then that's what I suggest to the client.

If, on the other hand, custom fixtures are desired or necessary, then I am more than happy to dream up creative designs that are appropriate for the project.

Layers of light

The most sophisticated lighting solutions use multiple layers of light. Go to the following page to see a short video explaining this:

Lighting Design in the Digital Age

In the video, you'll see how the following layers all contribute to the overall lighting effect in a hospital patient floor nurse station and lobby:

Task lighting -- LED strip lights built into niches and under cabinets
Task lighting -- Recessed downlights over desk surfaces
Ambient light -- Cove uplights over nurse station
Ambient light -- Recessed 4" slot fixtures over lobby floor
Ambient light -- Recessed 4" slot fixtures over circulation/corridors

Note: for various reasons, a specific project might not warrant using multiple levels of light. For example, a desire to:

Maximize energy savings
Reduce materials and labor cost
Reduce installation time and complexity

To reiterate, my design philosophy is to create the most appropriate lighting solution for every project -- based on the owner's and designer's goals.