“Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light.”

– Le Corbusier

Light is the medium through which we experience architecture and design; space, form, texture, colour, and mood, it allows us to perceive the world through the primary sense of vision and almost adds a fourth dimension to space.

Image courtesy Chrysalis Studio

Lighting ideas for home act as a tool; they help to sculpt a space by bringing daylight in through recesses and skylights. Often overlooked while designing a home, they need to take a prominent role as they can both underplay a setting and also naturally highlight the beautiful nuances of a space.

Image courtesy Chrysalis Studio

Thomas Fuller once said, “Light, God's daughter, is a principal beauty in a building.”

No home today is complete without the proper use of both artificial and natural home lighting decoration. Natural light can be brought into a house through skylights, large windows, glass ceilings, and recesses in the walls. The quality of natural light being brought in determines the quality of a space. Light can transform a mundane space into one of the elevated visual delights.

Large windows mean sunlight can filter into a room, creating play within a space

As Louis Kahn, known as the Architect of Light, put it

Architects in planning rooms today have forgotten their faith in natural light. Depending on the touch of a finger to a switch, they are satisfied with static light and forget the endlessly changing qualities of natural light, in which a room is a different room every second of the day.” … “Also marvellous in a room is the light that comes through the windows of a room and that belongs to the room. The sun does not realise how beautiful it is until after a room is made. A man’s creation, the making of a room, is nothing short of a miracle. Just think, that a man can claim a slice of the sun.”

However, in areas where natural light is restricted, artificial lighting is becoming increasingly important. Cove or recessed lighting can be used to create softness in a space. Also available are accent and mood lighting, focus and picture lights, LED, colour changing, and strip lights: the choices today are vast. Keep the mood and feel of a space in mind, as this will help you to colour and fill it with the right artificial lights or systems.

Light is perhaps the most important factor in deciding the quality of a well-designed home. It constructs, deconstructs, highlights, underplays, and brings forth the quality of a space… in essence adding a fourth dimension.



“Even a room which must be dark needs at least a crack of light to know how dark it is.” - Louis Kahn