Accentuate your house with lighting

Accentuate your house with lighting

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

When we think about lighting, the first thing comes to mind is it
only serves to help people see and to facilitate their activities
at night.

Yet despite this basic function, lighting nowadays also helps
people to highlight the aesthetic aspect of an architectural or
landscape design when the light design is carefully planned.

However, lighting design is not as simple as it sounds. In an
attempt to achieve a desirable lighting effect, an architect or a
lighting designer needs to analyze the space and answer several
questions - what kind of ambience to be created, what
architectural or artistic items are to be highlighted, where will
people sit and what tasks are to be performed in a particular
area or the room.

Lighting also bears other important roles such as defining
dimensions, accentuating ornamental details such as artwork or
structure and creating desirable ambience in different rooms or
even in different areas of a room.

"The primary focus is to meet the basic function, then we
bring the aesthetic purposes to the spotlight," lighting
consultant Hadi Komara said.

For this purpose, understanding the nature of different lamps
and mastery of lighting techniques are important.

Hadi gave a piece of advice for comfortable lighting, which is
to avoid exposing the source of the light.

"Indirect lighting helps provide sufficient illumination
without creating glare," he said.

Accent lighting (to highlight floral vases, paintings or other
ornamental items and architectural details) and task lighting (to
illuminate the counter top in the kitchen or working area in the
study room) can be used in a specific area that needs direct
beams of light.

Lighting can help define space and its effect can help expand
a double-function room by accentuating its different functions
(like study and/or bedroom), Hadi explained.

Recessed down lighting can be installed to provide unobtrusive
general, accent and task lightings. Down-lighting can also
accentuate interesting patterns on the floor.

The dominant material and main colors of the interior or
exterior also determines what kinds of lighting is to be used for
better illumination effects.

"Usually material with warm colors also needs warm tones for
lighting, otherwise the effect can be confusing," Hadi said.

He said each room is best equipped with a dimmer to control
the intensity of the light and enable the owner to vary the
ambience of a room.

The same can be applied for classic pendant lights, like
chandeliers. Lighting such as this needs to be softened with a
dimmer.

"A dimmer helps create soft lights, similar to the one
produced by a candle. People used candle light before the lamp
was created and now such a candle-soft effect can still be
achieved without using candles," he said.

Hadi said the use of table lamps or decorative lamps is to
instill a homey atmosphere as they provide warmth and "unplain"
effects that cannot be produced by other lighting techniques.

For family, dining and living rooms, down-lighting can help
highlight the tables, ornaments or other artistic items hung on
the wall.

Silhouette lighting can create dramatic effects on the
landscape especially if there are beautiful-shaped trees. Up-
lighting can also be set under columns or trees, for example, to
accentuate the profiles of the columns or the shape of the trees.

Although Hadi stressed that the main goal of outdoor lighting
was to clearly guide people along the walkway, up-lighting can
also be applied to create dramatic effects for elements of the
exterior, like statuaries and shrubberies along the walkway or
the pool.

"When it is placed near a swimming pool, it can transform it
into a reflecting pool in the evening," he said, adding that the
lights are placed and designed in such a way as to give an effect
that blends with the architectural design.

Hadi emphasized the importance of balancing the outdoor and
indoor lights to create a comfortable lighting for the eyes. He
identified one of the most common mistakes as switching off all
lights inside the house during daylight and using blaring lights
in the evenings.

He advised house owners to turn some of the lights on during
the day to balance the bright sunlight outside with the
relatively dark interior.

"Without adequate lighting, the house will look obscure
compared to the bright outdoor light and it may induce a mild
dizziness to some sensitive people when entering the house," he
said.

While during the evening, people need to avoid using blaring
lights for the interior, which will enable passersby outside take
a glimpse inside the house.

"The residents might feel like they are living in an aquarium
as people from outside can see what's going on inside," Hadi
said.