Light Revealing Experience

Experience all comes down to personal occurrences. We experience light through time and seasons. But, how we learn and experience light all comes down to the places and environments we grew up in.

You cannot imagine something you have never seen or experienced. Therefore if we as designers create a certain light effect or moment inside our designs, it has most likely been inspired by something we have experienced before.  We as designers can manipulate light in such a way that it “can make buildings be places that have special meaning for us, extending their value beyond mere functional use” (Reinhold 6).  It all comes down to our experience with light.

The spirit of a place can be determined by the light surrounding or inside it. The regions we reside in determine the light patterns we experience.

 Growing up on a island has definitely exposed me to a much different experience than someone who grew up in the mountains or country side of North Carolina.

Bermuda is a twenty-one square mile island that is known for always being sunny. On most days that is the case but we do occasionally have our gloomy days.

Growing up I can remember always having to wear sunglasses on the beach, not because its traditional to do so in such a setting but because our sand is so purely white that the intensity of light reflected off of it daily would damage our eyes. You would also get tanned much quicker on a Bermudian beach as opposed to Mertle Beach because the mixture of light and place allowed for the rays to be reflected at a much higher intensity than it would be on the gray sand on the shores of North Carolina.

The region I grew up in also had a large play on light and climate, Most of the time you could look outside and tell what kind of day it was strictly based on the light quality we perceive. If the light is dull and overcast, that usually means it is going to be a cooler day. Or if there are clear skies and a high intensity of light that usually shows us that it is going to be a much warmer day. Just through perception of light with the aid of climate we can tell what kind of day it’s going to be.

However, I would only be able to make such accurate assumptions because I have experienced days like those before. When we are unfamiliar with an environment, we will automatically be unfamiliar with its customs and all that surrounds it.

In design light has been separated into three types; ambient luminescence, the play of brilliants and focal glow. All three types have been pulled from nature. Ambient luminescence would be the way the sun glows behind the grayish blue clouds in the early morning as it rises from the horizon, illuminating everything around it yet there is no direct view of the source of light.

Or the way sunlight dances on the calm Atlantic Ocean making it seem as if it sparkled, would be nature’s play of brilliants.

A small bonfire seen from across a pitch-black beach would be my personal example of focal glow.

Light is one of the most vital materials to design, without it how would we see. We can create special moments with light, both artificial and natural. Light has always and will always be present whether we acknowledge it or not. But “we are most acutely aware of light when there is either not enough of it, or” (Reinhold 30) there is too much of it, and our purpose as designers is to ensure that the users obtains just the right amount to create that special moment or experience. 

Play of Brilliants (photographed by me) 

            Ambient luminescence (photographed by me) 

Focal Glow (photographed by me)