Creating a lighting scheme in an interior

There are three basic factors to be taken into account when planning a lighting scheme for an interior. These factors must be clarified at early stages of design, as they influence the amount of light, the position and type of luminaries.

Those factors are:

a. The purpose of the room
b. The dimensions of the room
c. Decorations




a. The purpose of the room

While in commercial interiors like restaurants, bars and other places of entertainment lighting design can be quite varied depending on the style and the fantasy of the designer, residential interiors and workplaces have certain strict requirements to the lighting scheme. In residential interiors every room is designed for a certain purpose, and specific activities are carried out in it. The living room is perhaps the busiest room in many families. The kitchen generally involves cooking and activities connected to it. These rooms need a good illumination system including several light sources with different luminance levels. Special attention must be paid to studies or children’s rooms where they play and learn.
Several task lights with different wattage can be placed in the living room apart from the general lighting, and be used as needed. It is necessary to find out where exactly in the room people prefer to do certain work, and place the task lights there. Moveable light should also be provided.

Offices, factories, schools and universities require higher illumination levels. The illumination at a workplace or in a study should be planned basing on what kind of work is being carried out in that interior: working on computer doesn’t require a directed task light, an appropriate high-luminance diffuse light is appropriate for computer work. Task lights, on the contrary, can create glare on the computer screen. But work involving hand writing or reading printed papers requires a task light placed above the workplace.


b. The dimensions of the room.

The size of the particular room defines the level of illumination required in it. To indicate the lamp wattage required per square meter three factors are used: the size of the room, the type of the lamp (fluorescent or incandescent) and the light distribution from the light source (direct, semi-direct, general diffusing, semi-indirect and general diffusing). Also, to get the figures of wattage per square meter the reflections for decorative surfaces must be considered, and if highly reflective or light absorbing surfaces are used, appropriate adjustments must be made.

c. Decoration.
Lighting is vital for people to be able to live in an interior, but besides its valuable functional characteristics, lighting also a strong aesthetic tool. Lighting itself can serve as a decoration in the interior, and interesting lighting combinations create a special atmosphere in an interior. But lighting  also emphasizes decorations, colours and textures.

While diffuse light is good for general illumination, it does not emphasize decorations and textures properly, as it hardly creates any shadows and highlights. For emphasizing a particular decoration in the interior accent lights must be used. Unlike diffuse light they create a high contrast of light and shadow which reveals textures and makes objects stand out. So it is greate for illuminating items that have a particular value or serve as focal points.