ReaLight Design

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posted by Bruc @ 11:55 AM 0 comments

Function and Beauty

Design, any design, has merit when it simultaneously makes a problem surrender to a solution, and elevates the emotions and understanding of a user above the ordinary experience of life. I can recognize the success or failure of my own lighting designs by how completely they respond to the functions of the design statement and by how people feel and interact in the spaces I light. Beauty is found in the combination of all of this and is an essential part of any lighting solution.

Lighting has its own tools. A lighting designer draws from a toolbox of his or her own creation. Tools are something very special to me and have been all my life. My father was an inventor and I still have many of the tools he made; one, a forged steel mechanism used to reline brake shoes on Model T’s. It’s useless to me but I can’t bear to part with it, his name is raised into the body of the tool. His creative time and thoughts are imprinted in its form and detail. There is a signature of successful design that is embedded in its structure and scale that I can sense, even though I do not understand the operation of the tool. I believe that good Lighting Designs can also be recognized by their own signatures of success.

My signatures of success for Lighting Design are: Economy--nothing extra, just that which is needed to perform the intended function and provide sustainability; Intention—the problem that is solved is important enough to justify the resources that have been applied to the solution and its purpose is integral to its form; Clarity—when you view the whole expression of the design, the individual problems solved in each part of the space add to the experience of the whole and make navigation a natural unconscious process, resulting in feelings that are appropriate to the situation.

I have five basic tools in my lighting toolbox. They help me make decisions about light in space as it renders form, defines surfaces, and helps people perform their important task. I depend on these tools to form visual concepts in my imagination, to decode what I see in the illuminated environment, and to express my feelings when I design. These five tools are: Light that Works / Light that Plays / Light that Rest / Light that Hides / Light that Hurts. I will discuss each in future journal entries.

posted by Bruc @ 4:08 PM 0 comments