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.