Specialty-food store Grace in the Kitchen takes its lighting as seriously as its cheese. Resting in the suburb of Kanata in Ontario, Canada, the warehouse-turned-shop is a sophisticated spot to find high-quality meats, cheeses, chocolates, bakeware, knives and all manner of kitchen gadgets for the at-home chef. Ottawa-based Parallel 45 Design Group Ltd. was hired to set…

Stretching our Limits How much square footage do we need to tell a story? By Brienne Musselman A full cycle of educational events has now finished, since we’ve been able to get back to the instinct of gathering. LightFair, IES Annual Conference, IES Street and Area Lighting Conference, IALD Enlighten Americas and LEDucation in the…

Mexican municipality Solidaridad will benefit from a smart streetlighting solution by Signify’s Telensa deployed across an initial 4,000 streetlights—affecting 350,000 residents—in Playa del Carman. Telensa was awarded contract by Traffic Light, the municipality’s urban planning consultancy and contractor, to deliver energy and operational efficiencies to the city, create savings and improve the environmental well-being of…

Landscape Forms, manufacturer of LED lighting, furniture, accessories and more, has become a gold-level sponsor of volunteer-run organization Women in Lighting + Design (WILD). “Landscape Forms seeks to advance and advocate for the involvement of many people and perspectives. Our student sponsorships, such as the Landscape Architect Foundation Ignite college scholarships for Black, Indigenous, and…

Our built environment plays a crucial role in determining the quality of energy we consume. As the nation invests in grid modernization and resiliency, there is a growing emphasis on electrification, renewable energy integration, and carbon reduction. With this, Direct Current (DC) power is key to easily connecting our buildings to renewable resources and energy…

The texture of crystal provided the inspiration for Vermilion Zhou Design Group’s renovation of the Crystal Orange Hotel in Shanghai. Lighting guides guests inside, transforming through different objects and spaces with a goal of releasing visitors from the pressures of the busy outside world. Supporting the motif is an infinity mirror box (pictured) located between…

Light flows in and out of this bike barn on a school campus in Arkansas. A barn that leaks? It seems undesirable, unappealing, untenable. Unless the “leak” is lighting, as is the case at the Thaden School’s Bike Barn in Bentonville, AR, where the whole idea is to “let it flow.”  Used for bike storage, as a well as…

A converted Midwest department store gets a makeover—inside and out. By Michelle Zimmerman "A lot of care has to be taken when renovating a building as iconic and loved as the Dayton’s building,” says Paul Whitaker, principal lighting designer with Schuler Shook. Influential in the history of the indoor American mall and parent company to…

With light trespass pervasive, the unshielded version of this fixture stands out as the main culprit. It’s time for a manufacturing moratorium Recently I spent an invigorating evening on a lighting manufacturer’s roof deck in midtown Manhattan. As libations lubricated immersive conversation, we witnessed a Harvest Moon rise over the Empire State Building. The night…

Using nanoparticles that absorb, store and gradually release light, engineers at MIT have created a new generation of light-emitting plants that can be charged by an LED. After 10 seconds of charging, the plants glow for several minutes, producing light that is 10-times brighter than the first generation of glowing plants the group reported just…

When owner Brandon Hartmann decided to open a new cannabis dispensary in Cobourg, Canada, he wanted the shopping experience to feel organic, highlight local history, and show off, in his own words, “budding feel-good vibes in a feel-good town.” “We created this entire store in honor of Cobourg and there are a lot of cool…

After a busy day of shopping at the Hyundai Department Store Mokdong in Seoul, consumers are beckoned to the roof where they can rest under the “clouds.” These clouds, however, are really clusters of “biophilic fixtures” hovering above both humans and plants. The design by Casper Mueller Kneer Architects and Lichtvision Design leverages both natural…

The Lumen What it’s for, and what it’s not One can generally see fine with enough illuminance, which is the luminous flux (unit: lumen) per area. The unit of illuminance is lux if the area is measured in sq meters, and footcandles (fc) if sq ft are used. Setting aside other aspects of the lit environment…

The Grand Hyatt Kuwait is the brand’s debut property in that nation. The luxury hotel is connected to the 360 Mall, granting  guests access to multiple dining and retail venues,  as well as access to the new indoor Arena Kuwait, which seats 5,800 and overlooks the Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy Kuwait. The interior design by…

Designers that have transitioned from careers in the theater to architectural lighting explain what it takes to make it in both arenas The lighting on the set for a Broadway musical is very different than that in an office building, right? Not quite, says five award-winning lighting designers who have worked on theatrical productions and…