Images supplied AFTER five years of stark minimalist house design, people are returning to building for personal comfort and opting for traditional lighting. The switch back coincides with the overall trend for people to build for nesting rather than show-case homes for on-selling.
Lighting design still has a contemporary spin but a traditional feel, says Mike Robinson, commercial sales manager for lighting and furniture company ECC.
“The nesting trend came out of Milan a couple of years ago where it was recognised that people were renovating or building for themselves,” he says.
“Lighting design was based around them rather than on-sale features and benefits.”
In place of the long, rectangular shapes and area-recessed down-lights that suited minimalist design, the trend has gone back to “a bit of retro — softer lines and edges, round fittings, pendants, wall lights, table and floor lamps”.
Mike says: “I like the feeling of soft lighting, especially if people work through stressful days. The last thing they want is harsh lighting at home. We have to be clever about how we use lighting. I am not a fan of a grid or dots in the ceiling.”
Feature lighting — such as recessed down-lights, picture or track lighting — has never changed because artworks and special pieces of furniture are always an important part of homes.
Lighting the periphery, he says, gives a space a bigger feeling. For example, in bathrooms people tend to put in light-coloured, high-reflection surfaces with the lighting down the middle of the room.
However, Mike suggests the lights are better on the periphery, which will give a warm glow.
Kitchen islands are focal points and people like to hang lighting over them. But, because most housing involves large open spaces incorporating a large kitchen, living and dining areas, he warns people not to clutter with too many hanging things.
“Lighting is an either-or situation, hanging over the island or the dining table — not over both.”
“But as a general light source we’re still a way from it. Rather the halogen is being used as a primary light source. It uses less power and can be dimmed. People want the warmth factor and the ability to change the mood setting. The LED’s limitation is that you can’t dim them and their colour is a bit cold — a bit like living in a fridge.”
However, LED lighting is being used to the extreme in outdoor landscapes where people want a low glow or colour. Recessed down-lighting gives a dramatic lead-in effect to a landscape. Installing in-ground up-lights is a newer trend compared with mounting them on walls. “However, generally outdoor lighting trends have not changed very much.”
A lighting designer has to get a feel for what the client and their home is about, says Mike. “Rather than saying this is what you need and what you should do, I like to say ‘this is your home so how will we piece the plan together?’
“People use a lighting designer for their experience, their understanding of light sources and their greater understanding of design — areas that people don’t think about a lot.
“We can point out the little things often forgotten. For example people going to bathrooms in the middle of the night don’t want to switch on absolutely everything.
Other quirky features include low level lighting on stairs, hanging pendant lighting in
the corner rather than the centre of rooms, and kick-space lighting around a kitchen island so that it feels like it is floating in space.
Crystal has made a comeback, he says. “Bling has been a big thing in the past two to three years, for example in the bathroom where the crystal reflects against high-polished surfaces and mirrors.”
He describes one house where a crystal chandelier hangs over the bath under a corner window. “When the morning sun shines through the crystal, it gives a bling effect, quite a unique feel.”
Separating good from bad lighting design, he says, is the understanding, experience and ability to connect with the client.
“People tend to forget lighting. But when you are thinking about building, sometimes at a cost of more than a million or even tens of millions of dollars, lighting can make or break your house.
“You can build a beautiful home any time but if it is not lit well at night, you have defeated the purpose.
“I like to think three-dimensionally, imagining myself in the space, walking the people through the space imagining how it will flow and feel, irrespective of how quirky it might be or what is described on the plan.”
