Week 9 Lighting Blog

Weekly Summary 

This week we learned about lighting in natural settings and in interior manufactured settings ranging from light fixtures to the different kinds of lighting available in a space. 

The origins of electricity and lighting typically start off at a powerplant that uses nuclear energy, or fusion and fission to create reactions strong enough to move enormous turbines to create the end result of electrical energy. This electrical energy is harvested and distributed through the use of power lines across selected areas in the United states and parts of Canada called a grid. There are currently three major grids the entire United States is separated into that separate the east coast, central religion, and west coast. The electricity is then stepped down at different stations along the way of its travel because the voltage is much too high for its end use in interior spaces. Through the use of transformers, the voltage is altered making it much more safe for everyday use in interior spaces. Each building has a constant flow of electricity to the structure from each powerline to the power plant, with no stored energy. 

Lighting in interior spaces is very important to interior designers due to the fact that the type of lighting can change how the inside of a space is viewed entirely.  Types of light range from LED light or light emitting diodes, HID or high intensity discharge, fluorescent lighting and many more. These different kinds of lighting vary in their range of warmth and brightness in how they make the interior of the space feel and is perceived. 

Selecting Lighting Assignment Images 

For my lighting assignment I chose two different interior spaces that adequately portrayed exterior light through the windows to the landscape of the interior. When studying the cast shadows and rays of light projecting different shapes onto the floor, it is interesting to see that the interior of the space begins to take on a whole new meaning and functionality to its overall presence. With the attributes of the floor to ceiling windows, the immense amounts of natural light that pours into the space gives a feel of the outdoors infiltrating the indoors while simultaneously reaping the benefits of enjoying a fully insulated area. This in turn gives the shadows projected by the light obscuring objects more character than if the space was fully covered by the shade.

In deciding which image to select from to convey the shadows for the lighting assignment, I elected to go with the image on the right due to its more interactive elements in casting interesting shadows across the floor of the interior. While both spaces have many similarities, the interior on the right has an interesting and unique element of the ground level window opening that allows for an interesting effect of exterior light to protrude through the space, breaking up the shadows nicely.      

Elements Of Shadow and Form

• Light side -

This includes the Highlight and the Halftones.

The Highlight is the lightest part where the light directly hits the object.

The Halftones are always going to be lighter than any value on the shadow side and blend into the shadow side (sometimes they can be split into light half tones and dark half tones)

• Shadow side – 

This includes the Form Shadow, the Form Shadow Core and Reflected       light.

The Form Shadow Core is the darkest part of the shadow, the rest of the Form Shadow is made up of dark tones that blend away from the core shadow into the reflected light, if there is any.

Reflected light is the light reflected onto the subject, from the surface it sits on or ambient light around the object.

• Cast shadow –

This has 3 parts.

The darkest part that sits directly under the object, the mid tone that makes up the majority of the cast shadow shape and the lightest, softest tail of the cast shadow

   

Shading The Image 

After I chose the image on the right to do my 10” by 10” trace paper rendering of the shadows of the interior space, I made sure not to outline the shapes created by the elements of light coming through the windows. Using a number 2 pencil I filled in each shaded portion of the image while trying to be very intent on each section of shade, veering my lineweight between intense darks and lighter cast shadows. The entire process was a thorough one that gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation on how light can enter into a space and change the perceived feel to any particular interior space.