Light is an integral part of architectural design

Foreword

Richard Kelly (1910-1977) was later known as the father of modern lighting design.

The article “Light is an Inseparable Part of Architectural Design” was published in “College Art Magazine” in 1952, which clarified Kelly’s lighting design concept and ideological context, and also gave a glimpse of the lighting development in the 1950s.

Following Richard Kelly’s words 70 years ago, you can not only gain a correct understanding of “light”, and lay the foundation for advanced lighting, but also gain innovative inspiration.

▲Richard Kelly

The perception of light and lighting begins with visual images, like a painter’s talent.

Imagine the rendering of a watercolor painting – first, paint the main highlight color; then, with the control of the moisture to overlay the gradient color with light and shade; finally, adjust the light and shadow details a little – the whole idea becomes clear, the eye got pleasure.

Note: Rendering is an important technique in watercolor painting, and the key lies in the control of water. In the “washing” method, several colors can be used repeatedly to superimpose, and then there will be both light and dark changes and color changes. Usually, the base color is applied first, and the base color is used as the highlight color. From light to dark, gradually superimposed.

What the mind’s eye sees is the three perceptual elements of visual design – three different effects of light. It can be linked to the art of painting for better visual understanding: spotlight or highlights; ambient light or gradient rendering; flashing light (colorful light) or sharp details, these three elements are also the order in which the imagination plans.

The spotlight is the eternal bonfire
It is a motto that shines with the light of wisdom
It's the chasing light on the modern stage
It's that quiet pool of light that sprinkles on your favorite reading chair
It's the warm sunshine at the end of the valley
It's the candlelight reflected on the face
It's the light of a flashlight that illuminates the stairs

Spotlight draws attention and brings together disparate parts; focus light is used to sell merchandise; separates the important from the unimportant – helping people see.

Spotlights sometimes have multiple focal points in an attempt to create a remarkable attention mix. When the number and combination of focal lights become more and more complex, another picture is created, similar to the second element of light – ambient light.

Ambient light is the continuous morning snow in the wilderness
It's the mist that shrouds the boats on the sea
It is a vast mist, the water, and the sky are the same color
Are the dome and amphitheater illuminated before the show at the Hayden Planetarium
the ring curtain of the open-air theatre
any art gallery
with lighted walls,
Translucent ceiling and white floor

Ambient light is also known as “indirect” lighting.

Ambient light produces shadowless lighting. It blurs shapes and volumes to the greatest extent possible, diminishes the importance of everything and everyone, and it suggests the freedom and infinity of space. In general, ambient light is soothing, reassuring, and relaxing.

Flashing lights in Times Square at night
It is an 18th-century ballroom decorated with crystal chandeliers and many candles
It's the sun shining on fountains and rushing streams
It's a treasure chest full of diamonds in an open cave
The rose window of the Cathedral of Chartres
It's the busy cars on the overpass at night
It's a city at night view from the sky
It's the trees outside your window with the spotlight
It's a gleaming cabinet with fine glassware

Flashing light stimulates the optic nerve, which in turn stimulates the body and spirit, stimulates appetite, awakens curiosity, and activates thinking. It’s distracting and enjoyable.

Note: Cadenza, a musical term, originally refers to the section improvised by the soloist at the end of the aria in the Italian orthodox opera. Later, this section is also commonly used at the end of the concerto movement, and the orchestra usually pauses the performance.

It is up to the soloists to give full play to their performance skills and instrument performance to achieve the effect of sublimating works. Play of brilliants, also translated as sparkling light, interesting light. The translation of “flashing light” comes from Mr. Cao, the founder of Elicht.

Visual beauty is perceived through the interaction of these three lights, although usually one of the lights will dominate. Therefore, doing lighting planning is a top priority in visual design, whether you are creating a new structure to interpret the idea of a house and home, changing an existing structure to meet new needs, or in someone else’s long-term project Using the existing conditions to do some transitional work.

Through the ingenious and appropriate control of these three distinct elements in lighting, the imaginary watercolor blooms become the real thing – architectural and decorative beauty.

These three kinds of light: Spotlight, ambient light, and flashing light, respectively, make it easier for people to see; make the surrounding environment safe and secure, and activate the spirit.

The Impressionist painter’s trained eye reveals and helps us see the true appearance of the material through the contrast of various lights. For example, Monet’s series of eight or nine paintings of Rouen Cathedral depicts all aspects from bright light to twilight appearance. (The original is the Cathedral of Chartres, which is the Cathedral of Rouen. It should be a clerical error by Kelly, but it is enough to see that he has a special liking for the Cathedral of Chartres.)

Psychologists through Whitehead, Santayana, and Einstein have confirmed the theory of modern metaphysicians such as George Berkeley that our true knowledge of this concrete world and all materials are based on sensory perception, rather than abstract learning.

Yale’s motto, “Light and Truth”, is a very old Latin phrase that now has new “Light” and “Truth”. In the contemporary environment, the “light” and “truth” behind perception have a new interdependence.

Psychological experiments are already very specific. The American Foundation for the Blind, an organization that works for people who don’t take “light” for granted, said in its 1948 annual report that 87 percent of human perception comes from our eyes.

Architectural design and decoration aim to serve humanity by improving people’s perceptual understanding of life. Therefore, it can be said that the purposeful and accidental effects of light also account for 87% of the overall visual perception produced by architecture and decoration.

Le Corbusier said, “L’Architecture est le Jeux, savant, correct, et magnifique des formes sur la lumiere” (in English “Architecutre is the play, knowing, correct, and magnificent of form in light”) — — Architecture is the appropriate and grandiose expression of form in light. (The translation also comes from Elicht)

Aside from some very important serendipitous occurrences, these new ideas look like fascinating mind games or fascinating double-tracks.

Much more has been invented and produced in the past two decades than new artificial light sources and their control devices, as well as knowledge about daylight and daylight control devices than we know about the history of technology development in the last two thousand years.

Ninety percent of the artificial light sources, lamps, and equipment that are specified and used today did not exist 25 years ago. E.g:

1. Sealed beam light, mushroom-shaped light for mushroom growth;
2. Controversial but useful fluorescent tubes that change color and become more and more friendly;
3. The slender fluorescent lamp can provide a longer and more convenient size, and can be installed flexibly according to the needs of light intensity;
4. Cold cathode fluorescent lamps that can be shaped into almost any shape;
5. The new mercury vapor lamp with higher light efficiency and better spectral performance is very suitable for “green” life, especially when we want to bring the scenery outside the glass room or floor-to-ceiling windows into the room from the outdoors;
6. Emerging flat light sources can now be used in small areas that do not require high light intensity and color, and will play a greater role in the future;
7. The production of precision compression-molded lenses can be permanently installed with lower initial cost and maintenance cost;
8. Use high-efficiency metal reflectors (reflectors/reflectors) instead of glass;
9. A wonderful new candle, with more light per ounce, less dripping, long burning time, repelling insects, fragrance, and ignition;
10. New kerosene lamps, round hollow wicks, less soot, and even incandescent kerosene igniters;
11. Canned gas that can emit an open flame and burn for a long time;
12. New wiring method, circuit breaker, panel control, and remote transfer contactor;
13. Low-voltage wiring for miniature light sources, and almost invisible wiring for precision design;
14. High-voltage wiring to reduce the maintenance of step-up transformers for some large fluorescent lamps, and also to reduce the volume of lamps;
15. Inductive wiring is used in some rare cases where the light source is completely disconnected;
16. New transformer type dimming device (no heat or waste), remote control by knob or button, continuously adjusts the visual environment to adapt to changes in the number of people and attitudes. The changing parameters of the light can be adjusted or preset to achieve automatic changes, and the photovoltaic cells can also be controlled to automatically supplement and adapt to changes in sunlight or other artificial light. Light can also be controlled by sound or music;
17. Some cleverly designed mechanical devices that can raise or lower lighting equipment, or move it on the ceiling, and add multiple or consecutive attachments;
18. Even the ordinary garden lights are completely new, and there are too many inventions to go into here.

Devices related to sunlight are relatively unfamiliar to laymen. The industry has produced many extremely efficient equipment or devices, such as:

1. Calculate the angle or curve of the window glass to control reflection and visibility from one or both sides;
2. Control the direction of light transmission through louver glass, louver screen, and polarizing filter;
3. Control temperature and visual temperature by color conduction from infrared to ultraviolet;
4. Combine the colors of indoor floors, terrace floors, walls, and ceilings to calculate the brightness of sunlight, which constitutes the main bright part of sunlight;
5. Increase the area of the curtains and increase the brightness of diffuse reflection light to provide indirect lighting during the day;
6. Use multiple small, dark, cylindrical, or square structure skylight domes to control the angle of overlapping downlights and eliminate glare on the normal line of sight;
7. Install larger tinted louvered skylights to eliminate overhead glare;
8. Use gradient daylight to wash walls through strip skylights;
9. Carefully hide the aperture of sunlight with baffles and reflectors so that sunlight can focus on some important objects and areas;
10. The size and shape of windows can now be classified according to the different uses of the room, for example, narrow horizontal windows are only suitable for rooms with shallow depths because even though they can distribute light more evenly on the ceiling and floor, The opposite side of the window often produces bright glare; in contrast, tall, narrow windows introduce better light deep into the room at the available angle and produce less glare;
11. Vertical Venetian blinds can eliminate the low-angle light of the direct west sun in the afternoon for conversation and work areas, but will not eliminate the simulated high-angle sun in the morning; there are also self-adjusting Venetian blinds, which can be adjusted according to your wishes and preferences direction of sunlight;
12. Indoor or outdoor horizontal baffles and horizontal Venetian blinds can also measure sunlight;
13. In addition, there are a series of devices that can measure sunlight: light traps outside windows; water reflectors; color adjustment by the reflection of large areas of red brick or aqua-green glazed tile walls; Adjust the color.

This overwhelming development of technological devices for creating and controlling light should not confuse non-professional users and their advisors. A newly invented device may perfectly serve a particular purpose, but this purpose occupies a very small proportion of the whole life activity.

These devices for emitting and processing light are tools for manipulating the fundamental, but still little-known, properties of light waves. Light itself, as a physical force, can produce certain elements or qualities through the periodic occurrence of certain effects, just like the wind.

Of these, two elements are best mentioned together—intensity and brightness. Intensity is the total amount of light flux moving towards a surface. Luminous flux is usually measured in the number of whale oil candles specified by the US Bureau of Standards, usually in foot candles specified by the US Bureau of Standards. Luminance is the apparent light reflected or emitted by a surface or area, measured in Lamberts.

Due to the subtle influence of habit, the emergence of more and more powerful light sources makes the minimum light intensity required for simple viewing and reading also higher and higher, just like after the emergence of new glasses, it is more difficult to see things without them. It was more difficult before. Over the past two decades, the foot candles of artificial light sources required for reading have increased each year.

However, when the light source as the sun is outside the normal field of view when sewing a very dark fabric in a very dim environment, the light intensity at this time is as high as 10,000-foot candles, and the reflected brightness is as low as 1- A 10-foot Lambert looks very comfortable.

On the other hand, in many old-fashioned offices that only operate at 5 to 10 foot-candles of light, many light sources, such as bare bulbs or bulbs enclosed in small glass spheres, will inevitably appear direct In the field of vision, and the brightness is 200 to 500 feet, Lambert.

The general lighting rule is high intensity (foot-candles), and low intensity (foot-lamberts). This attitude has probably become the most important technical goal of architectural lighting design. In addition to very skilled lighting design, with all the new light sources, new equipment, and other tools we have in place, it is impossible to completely avoid unanticipated glare.

Even if the light source is a modern device with a perfect design, there may be some excessive brightness or glare due to the misalignment of white surfaces or mirrors, such as white table tops, glass table tops, white floors, and south-facing unshielded glass walls.

In past architectural designs, these were all prone to happening. Architectural design is a game of integrated forms of different scales, proportions, materials, colors, and decorations, and in the past, the rules of the game were almost immutable, like an abstract truth, rather than visual imagination as perception in the visual source of experience.

The third element of light is diffusion. The wide white sandy beach in cloudy weather perfectly exemplifies what it means to be completely diffused. The angle of diffusion depends on the relative size of the light sources.

Due to the multiple incident directions, large diffuse light sources do not produce shadows, while small diffuse or point light sources produce sharp shadows. Often we say that non-diffuse light is “hard”, and sometimes this “hard” light can stimulate the optic nerve – like a restaurant where a projected point light source illuminates crystal, silver, and porcelain to reveal the inherent qualities of these materials.

Oftentimes, even such scenarios still require ambient light to provide the “softening” effect of diffused light for comfort.

Good reading over long periods requires diffused light to remove the brilliance reflected from glossy paper, as well as to remove heavy shadows that would otherwise tire the eyes from the constant refocusing.

The fourth element of light is spectral color. Most physicists agree that the color or dominant color of one band can only be recorded by the eye if it is correlated with another color or other wavelength.

That is, if the eyes are exposed to pure red light unadulterated with any other color, even for a short time (as in a laboratory test), the brain no longer sees red as usual, but only light and dark values, such as white, gray, and black.

We are rarely exposed to the light of a single color, but rather light composed of multiple colors, such as orange or dark blue visually seen at different latitudes and in different climates from dawn to dusk.

Most people don’t consciously notice these changes because daylight is so common that the difference is barely noticeable. On dry, clear noon, sunlight is closest to what we call white; on a humid but clear day, before sunset, the sun passes through the atmosphere farthest from the Earth and the atmosphere at the farthest from the Earth, and some of the short-wave blue light is refracted, so What is obtained is mostly long-wave red light. A person’s skin appears to be in very good condition – the healthy circulation of the blood is enhanced.

In general, filtering out other colors of light other than pink can artificially create a similar situation, where there is no color contrast, the light looks white but the person looks healthier and happier.

After the sun sets, the main thing that shines on the human body is the refraction of blue short waves. In the evening, people often use redder artificial light sources in diminished daylight, thus creating a color contrast and reference, and most people will therefore be aware of the blue in twilight.

This effect can also be artificially created, using a blue diffuser background to set off the warm pink highlights to beautify the skin, like candles or firelights in the twilight.

The fifth element of light is the relative orientation of the main apparent light area to the eye level. If the main part of the apparent viewing area is higher than the eye level, it will produce a sense of restraint, which is what we usually call a “formal atmosphere”.

If the main part of the apparent lighting area is below eye level, it creates a feeling of personal importance, i.e. an informal atmosphere or a comfortable atmosphere.

The sixth element of light is real but veiled activity.

When combining the three main elements of visual perception to create beauty with knowledge of the elements of light, the tradition of light in cultural contexts, etc., please remember that “variety is the spice of light”, so a knowledgeable person must be Only when used consciously can it be visually manifested.

Playing with light is playing magic – it requires a trained eye to recognize real and relative values, experience and knowledge of the cultural and psychological effects of light on people, and experience and knowledge of physical technology.

Light is both an art and a science. In 1917, about light, Matthew Lukish of the National Electric Light Factory in Nera Park wrote: “It is science, whatever its disguise, that can turn the mysteries of today into the common sense of tomorrow.” In 1952, we were entering a mysterious and wonderful new age.

Postscript

“Make art life, make life natural”. Richard Kelly extends from watercolor renderings to scenes in nature, showing us what good light, beautiful light should look like. Further, Kay uses his keenness to distill three kinds of light, namely “focus light”, “ambient light”, and “colorful light” – these are all aspects of light “art”.

At the same time, the development of modern biology and psychology has provided a theoretical basis for visual perception. The knowledge of physics makes it possible to measure and calculate light accurately, which is the “science” of light.

In Kelly’s time, candles and kerosene lamps had not yet completely ended, and fluorescent lamps and mercury lamps were emerging. People’s understanding of light is more and more comprehensive, whether it is a wide range of consumer lighting, or more complex architectural lighting, which is undergoing earth-shaking changes.

At the end of the article, Kelly sighed, “In 1952, we are entering a mysterious and wonderful new era.”

Now standing in 2021, we are talking about “smart lighting” and “human rhythm”. What kind of era will we enter?