Fundamentals of Home Lighting Design: Layering with Light

Good residential lighting design typically involves layering ambient, accent and task lighting to create interesting contrasts and establish focal points, or points of interest where attention is focused.

Ambient (or general) lighting uniformly lights the space, typically avoiding dark corners and putting some light on walls.

“If only ambient lighting is used, however, the lighting may be uncomfortable to experience because there is no contrast,” says Doreen Le May Madden, President/Designer with Lux Lighting Design, Inc. "The eye needs to be led around a space. Without any focus point, the eye is constantly roaming, which can cause eye fatigue.”

For visual interest, accent lighting is used to highlight items such as works of art, floral arrangements, and interesting architecture.

“The eye tends toward the brightest point in the field of view, so accent lighting should be strategically placed to grab attention by producing brightness contrast,” adds Le May Madden. “Well-designed decorative luminaires, sparkle elements, colors, textures and interplays of light and shadow are also important attributes to creating points of interest.”

Task lighting is then used to provide supplemental lighting for specific activities requiring more light, such as preparing meals and personal grooming.

⌂ Good lighting design uses layers of light to create visual interest
⌂ Layers are created via ambient, task, accent and other lighting techniques
⌂ Preset dimming can enrich a design by allowing easy creation of visual scenes
⌂ Preset dimming enables more flexible, muscular lighting designs

“The arrangement of lighting in a home, by attracting and guiding attention, tells a story about the home and its owners,” Le May Madden points out. "It can create drama, subtle effects, soothing environments or be energizing. Lighting controls enable the homeowner to change this story on a whim and enjoy a higher-quality lighting design, enhancing lifestyle, convenience, security and energy savings.”

By simply dimming the lights, the owner can affect visual comfort, change contrasts, create mood and alter perception of the space. When using a preset scene control system, different lighting scenes can be created and recalled whenever desired with the touch of a button.

By consolidating the dimming of different lighting techniques (switches) into a single keypad control, more switch-legs can be added to make the level of control more granular or expand the lighting. This provides greater functionality of the space while enhancing the visual appearance.

Making layering work requires decisions regarding the direction, intensity and color of light. Below are basic techniques related to light’s direction.

Task lighting. By providing sufficient light levels for people to perform visual tasks, task lighting is a basic component of lighting design. Examples range widely from under cabinet lighting to portable table lamps. The advantage of portable lights, of course, is that the user can change the position of the light source. Since the light source is typically located closer to the user, care should be given so that the lighting is not glaring.

In this bedroom, table lamps provide task lighting at bedside.

Downlighting. Downlights typically produce a soft uniform ambient lighting effect. Some downlights with reflector lamps can create harsh shadows, particularly on people’s faces, so it is best avoided or used with other lighting techniques in spaces where a lot of social interaction occurs. Downlights should be placed in an organized layout that does not call attention to itself. Be sure to select and place downlights properly to avoid irritating glare and ugly scalloping on walls.

Wallwashing. Wallwashing entails evenly lighting a wall from top to bottom using light fixtures such as track lighting and ceiling-mounted fixtures. This technique washes out shadows and therefore visually flattens texture, which can be very effective for hiding imperfections. To evenly light a wall, the fixtures, which have quality optics, should be placed at a suit-able distance from each other and the wall; consider some overlapping of light to avoid dark spots.

Aimable downlights provide accent lighting on artwork on the wall.

Grazing. Grazing is another wall lighting technique but instead of washing out detail, grazing enriches it, particularly desirable when the wall has an interesting texture such as stone or brick. This effect is achieved by placing light fixtures closer to the wall, reducing the angle of the light aimed at the wall.

Accent lighting. Accent lighting is used to highlight focal points in the space by creating a contrast in brightness between the focal point and its surround. Be sure to arrange focal points so that they are uncluttered and make sense while avoiding extreme brightness contrasts that can be glaring (a three to one ratio is suggested). Note if the point of interest will be moved in the future, the light fixture should be able to be moved or re-aimed.

Indirect lighting. Indirect lighting, such as uplight pendants and torchieres, uses room surfaces such as ceilings and walls to reflect visually comfortable ambient light into the space. Indirect lighting brightens the ceiling, which can make a room appear both brighter and more spacious. Room surfaces should have a high reflectance to maximize overall efficiency and a suitable color to achieve desired color quality.

Indirect lighting provided by concealed cove sources illuminates this living room.

Cove lighting. Cove lighting entails concealing linear- and point-source light fixtures in perimeter coves to create indirect lighting. Be sure to avoid shadows in the light pattern that call attention to light sources that are intended to be concealed.

Control it. Good lighting, lighting design and lighting control can combine to enrich the appearance of people, furniture, fabrics and surfaces in a room. Divide a room’s lighting into layers or similar groups of lights, and assign them to separate switch-legs (dimmers); for example, indirect fixtures used for ambient illumination should be separately circuited from track lights used for accent lighting. Each switch-leg is controlled by a single control device as its own control zone. Control zones can be as easy to plan as using colored highlighters on a lighting plan.

If a preset scene control system is used, a large number of control zones can be designed because instead of adding multiple dimmers on the wall, all of these zones can be controlled by single or multiple keypads, enabling the user to create and recall lighting scenes with the simplicity of pushing a button.

The result is a richly layered lighting design that can satisfy any desired mood, look or function in a room using a single control device.

< Return to Learning Center