Lighting
Designing with light as a material
Before we choose a single finish, we decide where the light should fall at seven in the morning and at seven in the evening.
Most rooms are designed for noon, when they are photographed. People live in them at the edges of the day. So our first drawings of any room are light studies: where the sun enters in the morning, where it lingers in the evening, and which surfaces it will touch on the way.
Start with the openings, not the lamps
At Dune House the two arched windows were set by the path of the evening sun across the dunes. Once they were fixed, the rest of the plan followed: the sofa faces the western arch, the dining table catches the morning light from the east, and nothing tall stands between the two.
Artificial light then fills the gaps daylight leaves. We hide sources wherever we can — in coves, under shelves, behind the spring line of a vault — so that at night the room is lit by its surfaces rather than by visible fittings.
A room lit by its surfaces feels calm; a room lit by its fittings feels busy.
Three layers, every time
We plan three layers for each space: a soft background layer that makes the room legible, a task layer where people read, cook or work, and a small number of accents that give the evening its character. Every layer is dimmable on its own, which matters more to how a home feels than any single lamp.
The test is simple. If you can sit in the room at dusk without switching anything on, and then bring it to life one layer at a time, the lighting is doing its job.
