Tuesday, 7 June 2011

The Importance Of Lighting In Interior Design


How you light your house is an important part of redecorating. A change in the lighting can change how the room is viewed. Lighting interior design contributes greatly to the look and feel of a room. There are many types of lighting which can be used in various rooms. We are no longer restricted to a few lamps around the room.
Ambient lighting is a hidden light source that washes the room with a glow. This creates very few shadows and tends to flatten a room. Japanese paper lanterns and wall sconces both produce ambient lighting. For temporary ambient effects, use a dimmer with your ordinary lighting.
Accent lighting provides interest to a room. This method of lighting interior design highlights and object or architectural feature. To use accent lighting, you only need a bulb and a shield to direct the light to the desired focus. Halogen spotlights and opaquely shaded table lamps both provide accent lighting.


Another kind of lighting used in interior design is task lighting. This is a more practical lighting strategy, highlighting an area for daily activities such as reading, cooking, and sewing. Effective task lighting prevents eyes strain and helps with the performance of vital activities. The kitchen is a particularly good place to incorporate task lighting in your interior design. Task lighting sources should be unobtrusive and shielded to prevent glare. Task lighting can be effectively combined with accent lighting to produce lovely effects.
Some lighting can be a work of art in and of itself. Aesthetic lighting is purely decorative, such as a neon sculpture or a spotlight illuminating a statue or painting. This type of lighting must not be used alone, but accompanied by other lighting strategies in your interior design.


Of course, no survey of lighting interior design would be complete without a mention of natural light. Rooms can be arranged to take advantage of the position of the sun at different times of day. This type of lighting is also called kinetic lighting because the light from outside moves. It is one of the less reliable types, as it is affected by the seasons and the weather, but natural lighting can produce an effect unequaled by any artificial light source when used properly.

Lighting is an important tool in your design collection. The way you do your lighting interior design affects the perception of any room. Lighting is also versatile. Using several strategies at once in a room allows you to turn any of them off, changing the look and feel with the flick of a switch. This can be effective for creating different moods in different rooms at night. Light is an essential part of our daily activities. Just like we need air, water and food to survive we need light in order to function efficiently.
Gone are the days when people used to stop working after sunset. The invention of electricity has made life easier and has helped to improve efficiency.
The use of light in interior spaces greatly affects the environment and "mood" inside the space. Here are some of the aspects that can be considered while lighting an interior space.

1) Natural light:
The Sun is the biggest source of light available on our planet.We all are dependant on it. Sunlight is not only required to function but is also responsible for biological balance of the Earth. Sunlight also keeps the air clean by killing any possible bacterial attacks which might be harmful to health.
It is normally assumed that sunlight can penetrate inside a space for about 7 feet (approximately 20 meters). If the architect has taken proper care during planning of the structure, then sunlight can be a very good and free source of ight.

2) Artificial filler lights:
These types of lights work on electricity and are required mostly at the night times. But this is not always true. There are some geographical locations where the weather is cloudy for most months in a year.
At such times filler lights in the form of fluorescent tube lights. These types of light are used to create the same effect that the sunlight would create. As the name suggests. these types of lights "fill" the space evenly with light, eliminating any dark spaces.


3) Special lighting for special spaces:
Special lighting is required at spaces where it is necessary to create a "mood" or special "ambience" inside a space. To achieve this use of color is done. Lighting fixtures like spot lights are used which divert the attention of the crowd at certain focused areas.
These kind of techniques are also used in commercial showrooms, to enhance the importance of the display areas. If you have visited car shows, exhibition pavilions, you will see this kind of lighting extensively used.
Special type of lighting requires more number of light fixtures, because the area they cover is very limited.

4) Extreme lighting:
This type of lighting is used in spaces where the activities have a special purpose, such as movie studios, pubs, dance floors, etc.. Here the lighting used can be of movable types, or can have more sophisticated controls such as intensity, color, movement, controlled through music beats

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