LDa Book_Chapter Two: Capturing Light

2 Capturing Light

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Natural light is a beautiful, compelling and powerful design element that anchors the soul of a home inside and out.

Best of all, it is free, plentiful and can be manipulated in exciting ways.

The time to consider its potential is from the moment you decide to build or renovate your home.

Whether we are building at the edge of a grove, on top of a hill, or at the ocean’s edge, the volume and character of light is unique to each place. It will reflect differently in each place and off of each unique material. Executed thoughtfully, the home can appear on the land as a beautiful piece of sculpture—as time passes, the patina of aging surfaces, whether wood or stone, will reflect light in new, engaging ways.

Inside, light enhances the experience of moving through hallways and stairwells into rooms. The quality of light can be utilized to support a variety of design concepts that create or enhance one’s moods. The evening light that comes into a formal living room via an expansive wall of glass might complement the room’s subdued material palette and simple, elegant furnishings.

Vignettes of captured light—a cat curled up on a sunlit throw, or the kitchen island streaked in morning’s brightness—become part of the comfort zone of being home, living in this space. The comfort, warmth and visual variety that comes as sunlight clocks the day in our rooms supports what we do there. We want the morning’s bright light to join us at the breakfast nook, in the pantry and mudroom because we want that energy to surround us when we begin the day. And we can plan for it to be revealed when the bedroom shutters open, cueing us first thing that our routine is about to begin. A sunset’s dimmed and rosy light, framed in a dining room window, is a reminder that the frenetic work day has long passed.

Light is no simple design matter. It plays off of all inside surfaces from walls to cabinetry to moldings and flooring, and can be utilized to enhance and punctuate material choices. But it can also take on the character of paint, coloring hard surfaces and softer design elements like rugs and fabric. Where natural light is lacking, wall sconces, lamps and recessed lighting must be carefully planned to recreate those familiar, natural moments in light. Artificial light should become integrated in the overall design theme; some of it will serve as pure task light that sits in the background, some, like recessed lighting will be hidden from view, and some can be one-of-a-kind art pieces.

Just as each room serves a purpose, so should the quality of light we invite into that room.

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“Natural light connects the exterior with the interior, sometimes by raking interior spaces with daylight, and other times by illuminating the view.�

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“Glass has a complex and intriguing relationship with light…it can defer to light’s warmth and radiant qualities or it can be used to transform them. Therein lie many design opportunities.”

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“We layer the interior design so the richness of rooms—expressed in soft and hard materials—is exposed to light in different ways throughout the day and gives each an active pulse.”

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“We all gravitate towards the places in our homes where light comes in, this is one of the most fundamental principles of home design.�

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“We are always thinking of daylight and how to capture it, but there is also the factor of how light reflects from a home—how we let it out.”

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ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS

222 Third Street, Suite 3212 Cambridge, MA 617 621-1455 www.LDa-Architects.com

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