CIRCADIAN LIGHTING IN DESIGN
- Lighting 101 -
In design, lighting is a crucial element of space and an important layer of the overall design, though its breadth and complexity may not be immediately apparent to anyone who isn’t working with it every day. We often refer to lighting as the “jewelry” of a space, as an accent light can act as a feature that ties a space together. Of course, finding a fixture that suits the aesthetic of the space is important, but there are countless considerations that go into lighting selections that make a fixture the right choice!
For every light fixture (or associated lamps/bulbs), there is a lengthy list of statistics and specs to accompany it. A fixture may look perfect for a project at a glance, but could perform completely differently than expected if the specifications were skipped over. Key items that we look for when specifying a light are colour temperature (the “warmth” or “coolness” of the light given off), light output (typically measured in “lumens”), direction (direct vs. indirect, up-lighting vs. down-lighting), spread and angle (the angle of the light emitted from the fixture, or the amount of coverage a light can provide), spacing (the recommended distance between fixtures to ensure even distribution of lighting), CRI (which stands for “Colour Rendering Index”, a measurement used to gauge how accurately the light translates colour to the human eye), and much (... much, much, much) more!
It doesn’t stop there though! Once you’ve found your fixtures lighting gets even deeper. Using the specification information, the next step is to plug them into your lighting plan. What people may not know about lighting design is that it involves math. That’s right, there are actual formulas and calculations that are used to determine proper placements and lighting levels. Laying out lighting in a way that complements and looks aesthetically pleasing within your space is important, but it’s equally important to ensure that the lighting placements are functional and perform as intended. Without this balance you may end up with a poorly planned space, which could be caused by imbalances in either direction. On one hand, if the lights are laid out in a way that focuses only on their aesthetic within the ceiling/walls, you may end up with a beautiful space that is poorly lit, ultimately distracting and taking away from the overall design. On the other hand, if lighting is addressed purely from a functional standpoint, you may end up with a beautifully lit project that is jarring due to messy or unconsidered lighting placements.
But that’s just lighting... what’s “Circadian” lighting?
As if lighting wasn’t already complex enough, the lighting industry has been evolving in leaps and bounds. Ensuring lighting levels are satisfactory for a space has always been important, but since the dawn of electrical lighting, design has waned back and forth on the importance of natural light and how we use artificial lighting. A particular focus on wellbeing in modern design has made “daylighting” a key consideration, and as more and more studies on the effects of natural vs. artificial light are conducted, circling design back to its effects on human psychology is incredibly important to ensure the lasting wellbeing of anyone who uses a space.
Circadian lighting is the practice of mimicking natural daylight patterns through artificial light to support the human body’s natural circadian rhythm. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, circadian rhythm is your body’s internal biological clock that regulates various bodily functions, primarily your sleep-wake cycles, hormone production, and alertness levels. Although subtle, natural daylight changes progressively throughout the day. A traditional lighting system offers a fixed and static level of illumination. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but with limited access tonatural light this can confuse your body over time, disrupting your circadian rhythm and leading to difficulty falling asleep, reduced alertness during the day, and a generally disrupted sleep-wake cycle (which can lead to further lasting impacts over time). On the other hand, Circadian Lighting systems are designed to be dynamically adjustable throughout the day, allowing them to align with the natural light cycle outside. This typically means providing cooler, brighter lighting in the morning (which suppresses melatonin production and promotes alertness), and gradually transitioning to a warmer, dimmer light in the evening (“winding-down” your body and preparing it to go to sleep).
You might be thinking “okay, cool, so circadian lighting adjusts itself throughout the day... so what?”. Well, there are a ton of benefits that come with aligning the light around you to natural light cycles. Beyond avoiding some of the potential consequences of artificial lighting that we’ve already discussed, circadian lighting actively and positively affects your overall wellbeing. Over time, circadian lighting improves your sleep quality and can improve your overall mood, and in spaces such as offices, hospitals, and schools, it can improve productivity and focus. Beyond that, it just feels “right” in a space. With most spaces, the goal of artificial lighting is to provide suitable light levels without feeling intrusive or jarring. Depending on the application, you want your general lighting to almost “disappear” – allowing people within the space to go about their business without actively thinking about the light.
Circadian lighting takes this to a whole new level. Because of the focus on matching daylight, the lighting within a space doesn’t “fight” with itself or the natural light coming in, choosing instead to complement and enhance it. To your eye, this creates a consistency that may not even actively register, effectively causing the light to “disappear” and allowing for increased attention and focus on the actual design of the space, or on what is going on within it.
Recently, two of our very own designers were taken by Advance Electronics to atend a lighting conference in New York. Our team got an in-depth introduction and training on Lutron’s “Ketra” system, a revolutionary circadian lighting system that changes the way we think about artificial lighting. At its basis, it’s a circadian lighting system that performs the functions we’ve already covered, but can be deeply personalized to reflect the way inhabitants of a space live and work. Beyond adjusting itself to the natural light, it can be programmed in various scenes, dynamically controlling several lights with a single control, as well as programmed adjustments throughout the year, continuing to adjust, match, and enhance natural light as the seasons change. It’s a truly exciting system, and we’re excited for the prospect of applying it in the (near) future!
*cover photo of Ketra Circadian Lighting in Sasha Bikoff's Hamptons Barnhouse