[0:00]Successful interior design is underpinned by a few basic laws that govern space, light, color, materials. And I think that lighting is probably the most fundamental. You can use lighting to make a big statement. You can take a dull, soulless room and turn it into somewhere vibrant and exciting, or you can make a serene, relaxing, calming space. But to understand lighting, you have to understand that it's more than just switches, sockets, plugs and bulbs.
[0:46]This program is about how to use light.
[0:56]There are two aspects of lighting you need to bear in mind before starting a design scheme. The first is making the most of daylight. Natural light enriches our homes, and by understanding its effects, you can transform your surroundings and believe it or not, your health.
[1:15]And believe me, light is good for us.
[1:25]Science has proved that humans are drawn to light in much the same way as plants grow towards the sun. A sort of human phototropism, which is a very good word.
[1:39]The second aspect of lighting is the plugin kind. A really dramatic lighting scheme can transform your room in an instant from light and functional to atmospheric and moody. We are applying the rules of design to the kind of houses that most people in Britain actually live in. So, in our laboratory studio, which is built to the exact dimensions of the average British living room, I'm going to show you how light affects our perception of color and texture. And how all designers use the same layering system to light any space.
[2:17]Understanding lighting isn't actually as difficult as many people would like you to think. Okay, so where do you start? Before you start spending money in a place like this, you have to understand a few things about your house. And first of all, you have to get your head around daylight.
[2:39]Light is much more than something that simply lets you see. It affects the way we feel and directly influences our moods. Expressions such as feeling in the dark or being in a black mood, or of course, seeing the light, are essential for our understanding of the planet. As a species, we now spend more time indoors than ever before, in fact, for some of you that's as much as 90% of your day. We're very sensitive to the amount of light that's in our environment. We find gloomy rooms difficult to live in. We don't see as well in them, and that makes us feel uncomfortable. Um, it may be something very primeval, there might be a snake adder hidden under the bookcase, as far as we're concerned. If you're in a light environment, you tend to be happier. You can see better, you tend to be more comfortable, and that's because it's what we need to survive.
[3:31]The Italians have the most fantastic expression. A house where daylight doesn't enter is a house where the doctor will soon come. Some houses like this, so elegantly and successfully maximize daylight, but it wasn't always like that. Daylight can be a problem for a lot of houses. Because the majority of us live in houses built before the last war, built for another generation, they are on the whole dark and often badly lit spaces. Houses like this. You know, this house is so typically Victorian. It's got a front door facing north and a back door facing south, which means that, I mean, pity the poor rooms at the front. Look, the daylight is so feeble. So how can we maximize the light in here? There are architectural elements around the window that can be used in our favor. These slanted flanks will actually direct and funnel light into the room, which is good. But of course, all of this, this big scary secondary glazing is absorbing an enormous amount of light. One of the most straightforward things you can do if you want to maximize light in the room is make sure there's not too much going on around the window. Let the light come through as uninterrupted as possible. A big mirror in here would make a huge difference, particularly right slap bang there. That print is very, very interesting, look at it, it's all about the effects of light. I think the people that live in here are aware of the fact that this is a very dark room. And that picture's become almost like a window through into a bright sunny space. I want to make this their bright sunny space. In fact, the changes in here can be affected without even flicking a switch. Please walk this way.
[5:18]Here in the modern extension, there are these large roof lights, which are creating very intense puddles of sunlight in the middle of the floor, whilst the corners are going almost black in shadow. So, opposite problems, Arctic at the front, Caribbean at the back. Here, I've got to redistribute the light and balance it. At the front, I've got to try and find more light from somewhere.
[5:46]Okay, so having too much light in a room in this country is a pretty unusual problem to have. The question I'm so most frequently asked is how can daylight be accentuated? The British weather has so much to answer for.
[6:06]If we relied solely on the sun's rays in Britain for illumination, we'd actually spend rather a lot of time in the dark. Because most British light is ambient, filtering through overcast skies, which either sneaks through a window directly, or gets bounced or reflected off a building or tarmac or grass. So that means that what's going on outside the room has a huge impact on the quality of light inside the room. Obviously, the sun's rays change throughout the year, and really clever, swotty, swotty, clever designers build that into a design scheme to account for seasonal variation.
[6:54]This is a facility used by architects to study how daylight enters a building at various times of the year. It's essential to remember that light is a very powerful tool. Interior designers and architects often refer to light as the animator of space. The sun is simulated by that lamp there, and then there are 270 other lights, which create background diffused lighting like the sky. So, I'm hoping that with a model of the Victorian house, in this context, I'm going to be able to understand exactly how daylight affects the space at different times of year.
[7:36]As a rule of thumb, a rooflight will let in twice as much light as a window of the same size. My concern about the harsh pools of light created by the two skylights seems to be confirmed. Here at midsummer, with the sun at its highest, the problem is most obvious.
[7:58]Yet, interestingly, even during midwinter there's too much contrast between the areas of direct sunlight and the darker corners of the kitchen.
[8:12]It's important to remember that although the eye can see in a wide range of light levels, we feel uncomfortable in high contrast lighting.
[8:24]Now, you at home can learn nearly as much about how daylight affects a room by simply watching the way the sun moves around. Obviously, it just takes time. It's worth bearing in mind that the quality and color of daylight varies according to where you live. British light is typically gray, quite different from say southern Europe. The best place to compare British light with other parts of the world is in an art gallery.
[9:03]As an interior designer, I've always found looking at paintings quite valuable. If nothing else, when you look close, the little spots of color are almost a recipe that the artist has used to achieve the finished effect of creating light. And it does go to show that a south facing living room in London or Paris is going to have a completely different quality of light to it than a south facing living room in say Rome or Naples. For centuries, one of the most important parts of an artist's job was analyzing and then capturing light. In this painting, there's a feeling of lightness and brightness, but it's all very chilly. It's obviously rather northern in fact, this is Turner's take on Margate. But meanwhile, further south in Avignon and look, it's beginning to feel a lot, lot warmer, a lot more colorful. And then, for goodness sake, the countryside just outside Rome, and it's a goody explosion with blue blue skies, purple mountains and dark, richly colored shadows. So a color like this, ravishing in the warm clear light of Naples, is actually going to look really rather muddy somewhere gray and dark in Britain. Like Margate.
[10:20]In our north facing Victorian terrace that gets no direct sunlight in the front at all, I have to be very particular about the color I choose. It seems quite straightforward to say that color's going to play a big part, but in fact, there are some colors that are so badly behaved towards daylight, and they're the reds and the oranges and the browns and the blacks. They they they hold daylight like a sponge, refusing to bounce it back into the room. Whereas other colors, paler colors like pale green, pale blue, pale lilac, they're very good with daylight, they amplify it, they reflect it. Each color has a particular light value based on the amount of light absorbed or reflected, and remember light is not white because as Isaac Newton discovered, light, although it looks white, is in fact made up of red, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, the spectrum. So what this means is when light hits say, a highly saturated red wall, most parts of the spectrum will be absorbed, except the red which is reflected. And that's why colors like this tend to close a space down. As a rule of thumb, the light of the paint, I eat the nearer to white it is, the higher the reflectance value will be. The green I'm thinking about for the Victorian front room has a lot of white at it and therefore has a high light value. Well I'm very pleased to hear that pale green is part of the well-behaved color palette, because pale green is the color for here. I've got pale green detailing on the tiles around the fireplace, and it seems, it seems rude not to actually use that as the theme for the room. Coordination. When you think about it, there's an awful lot of floor in a room, and the choice of what you put on the floor will affect how light or bright the room is. I mean, look at here. North facing window, north light feebly trickling in, but it's coming in at an angle and hitting the floor at about this point. If there was something reflective there to then shoot the light around the room, we'd be maximizing the little bit of light that we've already got. A carpet would be a disaster. Carpets are soft, absorbent objects made of thousands of tiny filaments that hold the light in. The surface finish, by which I mean matte or gloss, obviously has a significant influence. A matte surface will scatter light in all directions, whilst a gloss finish will reflect light directly onto the walls and ceiling. For the south facing kitchen at number 211, I've chosen a black slate floor with a matte finish, because I want the light from the skylights to be diffused, not reflected by the floor. Whilst in the sitting room, I'm going for a high gloss finish on the dark floorboards to reflect the soft northern light.
[13:09]Mirrors have a huge impact on a lighting scheme by reflecting daylight. They amplify the amount of light in a room at the same time as creating tricks and illusions that please the eye. So the more reflective surfaces in here, the more light. Nice, great big mirror opposite the window is going to bounce the light straight back into the room. And then tip picked up from the Georgians, where we've got the diagonal flanks either side of the window, narrow panels of glass to intensify and reflect the feeble northern light. You have to remember that the Victorians really didn't trust daylight. In fact, as far as they were concerned, it was something that came into their rooms and faded their carpets, or worse, turned their ladies odd shades of brick. In fact, you know, if you ever saw a Victorian lady with a sun tan, she's more than likely a prostitute. So, they made these great big barriers between them and daylight, heavy swags, tassels, fringes, anything they could use to get in front of the window and stop daylight coming in. So, I need to bear all of that in mind if I want to maximize daylight. I need to keep it bright and fresh with as little pattern as possible. These days, we know so much more about the importance of light for our well-being. Over time, our bodies have adapted to the cycles of the sun and our biological clocks follow the cycles of light and dark. The nerve centers in our brains are stimulated by the amount of light entering our eyes. Light affects our whole central nervous system, which affects how excited or relaxed we are. It also affects the pioneer gland, which is responsible for the production of a sleep hormone called melatonin. And and such a sort of makes us awake as opposed to being in a sleepy state. Over the last 20 years, Byron Mikelides has researched the link between light and our emotional makeup, in particular, the condition called seasonal affected disorder, commonly known as SAD. The research looked at how different light levels and working environments affected people. By measuring the distance from the source of natural light, data was collected from 2,000 people in four different countries over the course of a year. The report concluded that when humans are deprived of light, they become depressed and lethargic.
[15:37]We actually have found that SAD really exists, because it affects 11% of the population in England and Sweden, whereas in Saudi Arabia and Argentina, it's it's almost negligible. It's only affects 1% of the population.
[15:55]See, I told you light was important. I told you there was more to light than met the eye, and it's not just daylight either. Let's go into the fabulous world of electric light.
[16:17]There's a secret to lighting. And that is to go that much further than just the ability to turn on a switch and banish dark. What you have to realize is that you're never going to be able to light a room as efficiently as the sun does. So, just think of it in different terms. Think about it creating an atmosphere. Think about it being quite clever. This is a very, very slinky, smoochy space to be in at night, and why? It's because there are so many different sorts of light. Dramatic light, up lighting the pilasters, background, smoochy, subtle light like the table lamps. This is a fantastic idea, so simple to do. A socket in the middle of the floor so that there's a lamp in the middle of the space. It's almost like having a candle that you can turn on and off. And then other elements like the dramatic uplighting of the bureau so that you see all of the detail. Lighting has come so far since our parents day.
[17:22]That's much better. Switch it off again so we can see the difference. See, with one light, there's only half the available space. Without light, you can't really relax.
[17:38]There's more space in more light, and while we're at it, why not use Philips lamps? Philips lamps are good value, Philips lamps make cheerful homes. Nowadays, most designers use the same rules to light any space. All of these rooms rely on the same method of lighting, and it really isn't that difficult to understand. Stand by for your tutorial on the three layers of lighting.
[18:17]The first layer is general light, and most people would recognize this as a general light. Rather an unlovely light, which is why it's a surprise it's still a legal requirement in new build houses. It goes back to the days when you used to hang your gas lamp in the middle of the room. Now, anyone that still lights a room like this with one bulb in the middle of the space, and it's feeling a little bit depressed at the moment. I'm afraid it's your own fault. There are far better, far more versatile ways of creating general lighting. This is a much better idea. Rather than one intense light source right in the middle of the room casting very, very sharp, hard shadows. There are four light points that diffuse the light and dissipate the shadows, plus it's directional, so I can illuminate the corners. And also, if there's something in the room you want to make a big fuss of, such as a picture, or a mirror, or a piece of furniture, or even a bust of Shakespeare. Then look, it's spotlit in a very eye-catching theatrical way. But it's layer two where things really get interesting.
[19:44]The second layer is accent lighting, anything that creates mood, that creates atmosphere, that creates pools of light. And it's very diverse. It can be wall lights, picture lights, table lamps, or even candles. Which would you light first? Right, that needs to go bang by that armchair.
[20:05]Because that is the third layer, task lighting. Illuminating an area where you have a specific function. In this case, sitting comfortably and reading a book.
[20:29]Okay, so how do you apply these rules to a real space? The first thing you have to do is decide where you want your lights. Each layer will need to be controlled individually. If you don't, your room might end up looking like, well, the Blackpool Illumination.
[20:52]Before he starts work, your electrician is going to need one of these, a lighting plan so that he knows exactly where you want to put the lights. It looks scary, but actually it isn't really. Providing you bear in mind the three layers of lighting. I have a specific problem in this space, which is that I need to rebalance the light. I need to distribute the light much more evenly around the area. So I'm going to use a series of small down lights to create puddles of light. This is ideal for a kitchen. The last thing you want to be doing is casting a shadow over what you're cutting or what you're stirring. Like a lot of large kitchens, there's enough space to eat here as well as prepare food. So there needs to be an alternative layer, a mood layer that gives a lovely convivial atmosphere. And that I'm going to achieve by wall lights and also some table lamps on the work surface, which is an important point. It's a big area. I don't want pinpoints of light, it needs to be spread. The next thing you need to consider is the bulb, just as paint comes in lots of tones of white, artificial light comes in many contrasting shades.
[22:16]A standard light bulb emits a much warmer light than say fluorescent or compact fluorescent lamp. Scientists measure the wavelengths of color from a light source on a scale known as nanometers. Natural daylight contains a wide range of wavelengths, between about 300 and 700 nanometers. Other kinds of lighting have different kinds of wavelengths. One of the most extreme forms of lighting is low sodium lighting. That's the sort of lighting you see in warehouses and in car parks. And low sodium lighting only has a very narrow range of wavelengths, about 10 nanometers. One of the curious side effects of this is that if you're in a large car park where you don't have any other source of light, it may be very hard to find your car. Because you've only got a very narrow range of wavelengths, that makes it impossible to distinguish different colors and all the cars look gray. Okay, so if sodium street lighting is the lowest of the lighting low, what is on the path of righteousness? What is on the side of light? These boys. Low voltage downlights were originally designed for use within shops during the 1980s, because they are brilliant at reproducing colors faithfully. And now use widely in houses and they're brilliant in kitchens and bathrooms, because not only do they emit a clean working light. I think they come quite close to daylight.
[23:53]Of course, one of the big problems with this space was the contrast between the harsh daylight coming in and the dark shadows. So Venetian blinds down at the French doors solved part of the problem. Whilst these plants will eventually grow across the wires to create an Amazonian tree canopy that will filter out the daylight. And just think what could exercise it'll be climbing up to water them.
[24:26]And so, welcome to one of the most hard-working interior design schemes in the history of the world. Everything in this room has been specifically designed to capture, reflect, augment, bounce back every single last juicy little drop of available daylight. And let's face it, it's pretty mingy coming in here, so as a result, there are going to be accents of artificial lighting, or otherwise you won't be able to see what you're doing. And if nothing else, well, thank heavens for mirrors.
