living the GLEAM!
Luke Thomas, Design Director of John Cullen Lighting, talks to Angela Sara West about the importance of daylight in interior design, his tips on making the most of natural light, how to avoid that feared “goldfish bowl” feeling with glass, and sheds some light on how
to achieve those ‘wow factor’ lighting goals!
Ever wondered how to bring natural light into the home effectively? Struggling to ensure it works well with artificial lighting throughout the day? Muse no more, as Improve excels
at sourcing experts to solve all of your lighting issues and advises on your itching improvement enquiries. Whatever the question, we offer enlightenment.
Let the outdoors in for spring
The lockdowns of 2020 taught us about the importance of natural light in our lives… We looked to the great outdoors and nature as a source of wellbeing, and for delivering that all-important vitamin D after being cooped up indoors for much of the year.
Successfully bringing natural light into the home is simple… if you have a few designer tricks up your sleeve! Just as important as artificial light, daylight is a key factor for all designers, having
a major impact on interior design. Since it will affect where everything
is positioned, interior and lighting designers meticulously monitor how daylight enters each and every space.
With our eyes naturally drawn to the brightest point in a room, combining different light sources can be subtly used to influence our mood. By illuminating our homes in a winning way, we can subliminally introduce levity into our lives and brighten up every day!
Highlighting sky lighting!
“Daylight is crucial to any architectural and interiors project,” says Luke Thomas, Design Director of multi- award-winning architectural
lighting specialist John Cullen Lighting, a leading name in discreet lighting, designing schemes for the house and garden and state-of-the-art light fittings. “Designers carefully consider how to handle natural light alongside
artificial light, to offer varying light options throughout the day.”
In a living area with expansive bi-fold
or large-span doors, daylight decidedly pours in, making for a beautifully-bright and organically open scene, but a grey afternoon in London looks very different to a contrasting bright sunny morning in Barbados, and will require different lighting. And this is where a little help from above also comes in handy…
“Skylights can be used to great effect to flood space with light and add definition to the shape of the building during the day,” Luke explains.
LED love…
Having studied Product Design at university, Luke joined John Cullen Lighting as a trainee designer in 2008, becoming the celebrated company’s Design Director in 2017. With a long-time passion for interiors and architecture, his interest in lighting sparked at an early stage, lighting his path to John Cullen, where he excels at using light creatively for its final purpose. A pioneer of lighting design, John Cullen’s world-class lighting schemes span the luxury residential and hospitality industries.
Luke started in lighting just before
the LED revolution, and has enjoyed surveying the technology evolve and progress exponentially, to the point where it’s now possible to use LEDs without any sacrifice in quality. No longer viewed as overly colourful
and bright, incorporating them in
both interior and exterior lighting schemes can create an amazing ambience. What’s more, LEDs’ long- life expectancy plus miniaturisation makes it easy to conceal light sources, meaning lighting schemes can be more dramatic than ever.
Colour rendering
Looking to light up some artwork? Consider the colour rendering index (CRI), a value between 1 and 100 which measures how well a light source will render colours in relation to natural daylight. Aim for 90CRI or above to create vivid, true-to-life colours to avoid a flat, dull and lifeless feel, instead shining a light on your prized possessions.
The CRI assists in accurately seeing how the light source will display colours in relation to how they should be seen under a perfect light source, such as the sun.
Creating texture and depth through multiple light forms and positions also adds drama to the room. A linear LED can be used as a backlight to a shelf, combined with an accent light to spotlight an object.
Reflecting on life at home…
To broaden its perspective, using perimeter lighting on a room’s edges and straight surfaces such as cupboards can bounce back and brighten a space.
“You can create a greater sense of space and brightness in a room using artificial lighting directed towards vertical surfaces, which then reflects light back into the room,” says Luke.
Layer with Light!
Just like interior designers play with textures, lighting experts like to play with light, ensuring the very best features are enhanced, with dazzling results. With forethought and planning, different layers of light can create a textured effect, lending depth and interest to a space. Mixing ambient, accent and task lighting with natural light can create an incredible impression.
The layering of light and flexibility are key with open-plan living spaces to strike the right balance when bringing light into the home. While it’s effectively one big room, a kitchen/ dining/living space is essentially three separate spaces, each with its own unique lighting requirements. Some common themes can tie the space together, and also consider combining ambient, task and accent lighting layers across the area, zoning the lighting in each separate space to really add that sought-after ‘wow factor’, working with the natural light flooding in through glazing, skylights or lanterns.
Shine a spotlight on…
Architectural lighting still plays a part where there’s daylight. Artificial light creates visual stimulation, accentuating specific features in the space. You can use it to brighten dark spots
in shelving, highlight photos and coveted features, such as a period property’s stunning original ceiling, and add brilliance to a kitchen island, for example, where it helps to focus light for practical purposes, too.
Remember that not everything needs to be lit – create a visual focus point and look carefully at where the light falls in a space, not just where the light source is located. Forming shadows can help the desirable aspects you light stand out, and uplighting can enhance architectural features such as that fantastic fireplace or decadent doorway, by providing a soft, indirect candle-light effect.
Night & Day… sundown skylighting
Consistency is key with colour temperatures; choosing an appropriate colour temperature, measured in Kelvins (K), is crucial, and can make for a comfortable and relaxing feel. Get it wrong, and your home could feel like the Arctic Circle!
For a sophisticated look, Luke advises using warm whites, although he warns that warm whites can vary supplier-to- supplier. Basically, the higher the Kelvin number, the cooler/ bluer in colour it will be, while lower numbers emit more amber/red shades.
Luke says 2700K works well in most residential
interiors, and John Cullen offer pre-set options on a switchpad to achieve the optimum results when using a combination of daylight and artificial light to manage lighting options for different times of the day.
“My advice would be against the use of artificial lighting that matches the colour temperature of daylight. In the evenings,
this can seem very blue and cold when, in fact, a warmer, more atmospheric effect is needed. 2700 Kelvins provides a flexible balance, and is suitable for use at most times of the day,” advises the luxury lighting designer.
Get an all-day-long glow!
Alongside selecting the right lighting
to improve the ambience of your home and creating the right atmosphere for the right time, explore the opportunities for maximising the lighting in your space to make your key pieces sparkle ‘naturally’ at night, to achieve that showstopping shine. “A good trick
is to use linear lighting added to a concealed curtain track across the width of bi-fold doors, which can help to retain this ‘wall of light’ into the evening,”
To dim or not to dim…
Radiating inside & out
After dark, Luke says skylights still have a role to play. “Once the sun sets, the wells of light become big black holes, presenting an opportunity for artificial lighting to fill the void,” he explains. “A continuous ribbon of light around the perimeter of the skylight provides architectural accent and an effect which creates contrast between night and day.”
How about perfecting that transparency between inside and outside? “A way to achieve this if you have glass bi-folding doors is to light your garden beyond. This stops your space feeling like a goldfish bowl at night as the glass reflects and, instead, draws your eye outside. Both inside and out, think about layering with light to add interest and drama to every space.”
Bring the outdoors in… and out!
With the world of LED lighting
evolving at breakneck speed in this ever-changing high-tech age, new
tech in today’s lighting schemes can magically bring both your home and outdoor space to life, and be managed meticulously to minimise environmental impacts and wildlife disturbance. By extending the lighting from interior to exterior, whatever the weather, you
can achieve an astounding al-fresco ambiance outdoors from dusk-to-dawn, to be admired all year-round from the comfort of your equally-well-lit home.
Our practical tips and tricks to maximise the lighting potential of your space should soon see you living the gleam, by flooding your home, and life, naturally with light, whatever the time of day!
For further information, visit: www.johncullenlighting.com© Angela Sara West 2020 www.angelasarawest.com