Let There Be Light and Why Lighting Design Matters
- Brainz Magazine
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Ashley Chan is an accomplished lighting and interior designer with over a decade of combined experience in the Philippines and the United States. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to designing transformative, functional, and visually compelling spaces across diverse sectors.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that every well-designed space needs good lighting. Or is it? Somehow, despite the commonly acknowledged benefits of proper lighting, such as enhanced mental and physical well-being, lighting design often ends up as an afterthought. There’s more to light than meets the eye. Here’s why it matters.
Lighting shapes experience
Lighting, by its very nature, is inevitable, we need it to see and experience the world around us, and lighting design is the art that shapes it. Behind the scenes, lighting designers carefully and thoughtfully craft illumination to add depth and character to spaces, highlighting textures, enriching colors, and sculpting form into presence and meaning. Beyond this, it holds the power to change behavior. Consider the difference between wanting to linger for hours in a softly lit café and feeling the urge to leave an overly bright fast-food restaurant after a few minutes.
Lighting design is a nuanced practice that involves several layers of integration. For starters, lighting can be ambient (to set the general mood), task (to provide light for specific tasks), or accent (to draw attention to specific moments or features). It is important to focus on which lighting is necessary for different space types and activities. Color temperature can shift how we perceive color and form and alter the overall mood of a space. Optics, lenses, or reflectors, all of which control how light is focused or diffused, can make a space feel comfortable and balanced or sharp and jarring. There’s a physical aspect to this: our eyes constantly adapt to the light we perceive, and sharp contrasts within a space can impair visual acuity.
Lighting well means living well
Lighting, both natural and electric, is woven into our sense of time. It marks the beginning and end of each day and affects even our mood and energy. Having the right ambient lighting levels indoors is crucial to supporting the light/dark cycle that regulates our internal body clock, better known as the circadian rhythm. For instance, exposure to bright, natural light in the morning can improve alertness, while exposure to harsh light in the evening can disrupt the circadian rhythm.
Researchers are increasingly exploring the potential of circadian lighting, lighting systems that align with our biological sleep/wake cycles. This is more important than ever. Studies have shown that we spend about 90% of our time indoors. When our circadian rhythm is in sync with the natural light cycle, we tend to function better, mentally, physically, and emotionally. In intensive care units, circadian lighting has been found to help regulate sleep patterns, resulting in improved patient outcomes and even faster recovery. This highlights how thoughtful illumination can profoundly influence our health.
Lighting as a path to sustainability
Lighting is also an integral part of sustainability in the built environment, starting with daylighting. Having a lighting designer on board early in the design process can make a difference in several ways. Designing a space to thoughtfully incorporate natural light can reduce dependence on artificial lighting and support health and well-being. In practice, this can mean orienting the structure to modulate daylight access or positioning elements such as windows and reflective surfaces in a way that better controls daylight penetration.
Equally important is how electric lighting is designed. Energy-efficient lighting not only reduces energy use in buildings, it plays a crucial role in shaping more sustainable cities worldwide. For example, studies have shown that upgrading to LED lighting can cut energy consumption by up to 80% compared to traditional lighting sources. In addition to selecting the right luminaires, optimizing sensors and controls can also lower energy use and operational costs. By adjusting automatically based on occupancy and daylight, smart lighting systems add another layer of efficiency in design.
Lighting in focus
Though often overlooked, lighting is one of the most powerful tools for design; it shapes not only how we see, but how we feel, function, and live. It influences our health, mood, and overall well-being, while also playing a key role in driving sustainability and energy efficiency in the built environment. Lighting is not just another detail in design; it can be a catalyst for change, and it deserves consideration in every stage of design.
Let there be (well-designed, energy-efficient, human-centric) light!
Read more from Ashley Elizabeth Chan
Ashley Elizabeth Chan, Interior and Lighting Designer
Ashley Chan is a lighting designer at Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design (HLB) in New York City. She started her career in interior design in the Philippines before transitioning to lighting design. Ashley holds a Master of Fine Arts in Lighting Design from Parsons School of Design, where she gained a deep understanding of light as both a technical and emotional element of space. Her interdisciplinary approach combines sustainable and socially impactful principles to create spaces that are both functional and centered on the human experience.
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