8 minute read
Focus Clearly, Change Easily
When we help clients understand the benefits of light, we can transform the design process and deliver better results.
By David K Warfel
Light is nothing like a new couch, so why are millions of homeowners happy to spend several thousand dollars on a new sectional sofa every few years, but balk at swapping out a $10 disc light for a $100 recessed downlight? Residential lighting, whether it be in large apartment complexes or luxury estate homes, has arguably gotten worse in the last ten years instead of better. Yes, we are saving some energy by switching to LEDs. But the energy gains are offset by increased glare, decreased dimmability, and just plain ugly environments.
I am afraid it will not get any better until we, the lighting industry, stop baffling clients and hawking products and instead start sharing the gift of light. When we move away from confusing metrics (ask the average client about TM-30 and watch confusion spread across their face) and stop focusing on how easy it is to install (this wafer light installs in seconds and provides bad lighting for years!), we make room to talk about the many ways light can help us live our best lives.
The sofa, according to its clever marketing, promises to make our homes beautiful, make clean up a breeze, and give our lives the fabulous aura of “European beach getaway vibes.” Yes, that is a real ad for a sofa, essentially promising that changing out our couch will magically transport us to another continent, another house, another family…another life.
There is a difference between a new couch and better lighting. Better lighting can actually change the way people live – for the better – every single day of the year. For decades. So why are architects, interior designers, builders, electrical contractors, and homeowners choosing container loads of poor lighting every day? We are the lighting industry, and we are to blame. That is good news, because we can make it better.
So far in this series, I detailed several ways that light can help our clients live better lives. Light, where we hold things in our hands, can help us see what we are doing so we can do it better. Light, for faces and places, can help us know where we are, where we are going, and who is with us. Light, for our bodies, can help us feel more rested in the mornings, more alert in the afternoons, more relaxed in the evenings.
Light can also help us focus clearly and change easily. These are not potentially frivolous extras (our lights can pulse with the music!), but universal human needs we all share.
FOCUS CLEARLY
When I think about how light can help us focus clearly, I often reflect on the many years I spent with one foot in architecture and the other firmly in the world of theater and performance. “Focus” was the name for hours and hours of work in the theater, patiently and carefully aiming, adjusting, and tweaking hundreds of individual light fixtures above the stage. Every light had to be just right, but why? Because humans, whether in the audience or at home, are biologically responsive to light.
The easiest example of how light directs our attention and drives our ability to focus is that of a followspot during a live rock concert. Followspots are deliberately brighter than everything else around them (though few theatrical designers will use the term “contrast ratios”), and inexorably draw attention to the star performers. In an audience of 70,000 people, there is little doubt that nearly every eye in the stadium is focused on Taylor Swift, even if it is nearly impossible to see her from 100 yards away. Light gives us focus.
How many people have heard, “Are you even paying attention to me?” from a significant other sitting in shadow while some other place in the room is brightly lit? Biologically, we respond to an imperative to find the brightest spot in the room. If it isn’t the face across from us, our bodies and minds will fight to pay attention.
How many youth have trouble focusing on their homework? In most secondary bedrooms, there is a bright spot of light on the ceiling in the middle of the room and a desktop in relative darkness. A student in that environment will be biologically driven to look away from their homework.
I got into lighting because I thought it was fun. Light, on the other hand, is more than fun. It is essential.
CHANGE EASILY
There is an overplayed saying that change is the only constant, but it survives and thrives because it is built on a simple truth. Light in the typical home, however, works hard to completely Darkening the theater draws our focus to the screen, helping us prepare for and enjoy the experience. Renderings by Michael Weber, courtesy of Light Can Help You.
Ignore our biological and psychological need for change. You can have your lights on or off. If we want to help people with light, it is time to retire the light switch in any room we occupy for more than five minutes.
Light can help our clients live better lives by making change easier – and refocusing our conversation on the benefits of light will help clients make better choices.
Light for change goes beyond light for feeling good. While a diet of only apples is not good for us, a life filled exclusively with eating healthy foods, all day, every day, is not good either. We need exercise, companionship, learning, work, and other activities to make a full, healthy, happy life. Light, then, must not only be the right light, but also the right light at the right time, and that requires constant change. While there are countless ways change happens to us and around us, a quick look at natural light, age, activity, and mood will usually be more than adequate for client discussions.
Imagine a world without natural light. There would be no rising sun to help get us going in the morning. There would be no sunny days for walking the dog, no beautiful sunsets, no gradual darkening to prepare us for rest, no moon, no stars. Or imagine a world where the sun hangs directly above, twenty-four hours a day. It does not take much imagination to realize this would be horrible for our lives. Yet that is what most of our homes (and, sadly, workplaces) contain: unchanging light completely ignorant of natural cycles.
Imagine a world where there is only one level of light, a constant brightness that must work equally well for an infant, a teen, a middle-aged person, and an elder. That is how we live when we limit ourselves to “off” and “on” in our homes. Yet we know that our bodies change, our eyes age, our corneas yellow, our muscles stiffen. We know that light at sixty years of age needs to be different than light at twenty. And what does our kitchen have? The same light for everyone.
Imagine a world where your every minute was spent in a big box store like Walmart. You’re never allowed to leave, never allowed to visit a comfortable restaurant or relaxing home. You must work in Walmart, get married in Walmart, sleep in Walmart, exercise in Walmart, celebrate holidays in Walmart, play with your children in Walmart. It sounds like a miserable experience, but the unchanging light that makes it easy to for Walmart to stay open 24/7 is remarkably similar to the light many of us have over our heads at work and at home. We need light to change as our activities change.
Finally, imagine someone who loves using emojis but is limited only to ☺. Our moods change – sometimes imperceptibly, other times dramatically – and those changes can happen multiple times a day. If we want to support our lives in different moods, light can help us. Excitement? We can do that with light; it gets done in nearly every popular musician’s concert. Relax? Sure, how about a crackling fire and some candlelight. Sad? Cozy up to warm, soft light. Angry? I suppose bright flashing lights would keep you that way, but certain soft colors can have a much-needed calming effect.
Light can help us change easily, just as it can help us focus clearly.
If we talk about the real, tangible, critical benefits of light, if we refocus our client conversations on simple, easy to understand ways light can help us, a good number of those clients will put off replacing the sofa for a couple of years and invest in lighting instead. This happens when we ask them not to spend money on lighting, but to invest in their lives by investing in the miracle of light. There is no need to make false promises. The promises of light are amazing enough.
