Architecture can reflect our connection to the natural world, and light as a storyteller, accentuates both the materials and the forms that shape our spaces. Incorporating natural light with the design and selection of artificial light does more than just brighten a room. Lighting design weaves narratives, creating perspectives that can be truly breathtaking, even transformative. Imagine light dancing across a landscape, highlighting the delicate textures of a building’s facade, or transforming a simple interior into a sanctuary of warmth and welcome. This exploration delves into the interplay of light and architecture, guided by the vision of Schwartz and Architecture (S^A) and Steven Holl Architects. We’ll uncover how their work deepens our understanding of human-centric design.
Table of contents:
Schwartz and Architecture (S^A)
Lichen House
Architect: Schwartz and Architecture
Lighting Design: PritchardPeck Lighting
Landscape Architect: Surface Design
The architecture of this residence is inspired by the environmental significance of lichen. Lichen is the combination of two organisms. It is part fungus and part green algae and/or cyanobacteria and it known to cover the oak trees of Sonoma County, California. A keystone species, lichen’s ability to capture nutrients from the air and provide resources for its surrounding ecology is metaphorically expressed in the Lichen House. The design of Lichen House responds to the viewing and climate opportunities present on site. Daylight and artificial lighting are integral elements of the design concepts of this residence.
The layout of Lichen House shields unwanted views while opening up and framing the desired views of the site. This building’s form visually nestles itself into its surroundings using delicate vertical façade elements that complement the trees and landscape. A carefully controlled porosity flows through this house, connecting interior and exterior circulation through an axial intersection with penetrating views. Wide overhangs visually mimic the concept of lichen to produce beautiful yet functional daylighting and enable artificial light to peek out from the interior to illuminate its organic form. The Lichen House is oriented to optimize daylight, controlling summer heat gain while enabling sunlight penetration in the colder months. Many special moments in the interior also reveal views of nature and the sky and bring in sunlight.
The artificial lighting design accentuates and refines the interior of Lichen House. Focal glows pull one through the residence, highlighting living areas and thresholds of its interstitial spaces. The overall lighting strategy provides visual energy between interior and exterior program while also creating a discrete visual language of lighting for the publicly visible spaces. The Lichen House forms a symbiotic relationship with its environment, filtering the elements using building energy strategies, which form unique microclimates and experiences for each section of the interior program.
El Pípila
Architect: Schwartz and Architecture
Lighting Design: PritchardPeck Lighting
Ceramic Tile Design: Heidi Stauffer
El Pípila restaurant tells a story of transformation, turning a narrow San Francisco space into a vibrant celebration of culture. Inside, modern designs and colorful displays of light provide a stage for the restaurant’s striking design. Outside, creative lighting beckons, captivating passersby and hinting at the culinary journey within.
This restaurant’s design is inspired by the cultural aesthetics and vibrant city colors of Guanajuato, Mexico. These ideas are translated to the restaurant through an artistic tiled wall element and multiple glowing lighting elements. This tiled wall element spans the length of the interior, telling a story of the owner’s family and also the historical figure of El Pípila. The tiled wall art is illuminated around its perimeter, creating a glow that opens up the space. A suspended rectangular lighting installation defines the entry reception area and creates an ephemeral glow, which correlates to the glowing exterior signage of this restaurant. The lighting installation at the far end of the space changes colors and creates a playful focal draw. This light installation in the rear is framed with charred wood that alludes to the history of the El Pípila, himself. Architecture and lighting work together at the El Pípila restaurant to bring cultural and artistic wonder to its patrons.
Modal Home
Architect: Schwartz and Architecture
Lighting Design: PritchardPeck Lighting
Landscape Design: Studio Green
The Modal Home, situated on a noisy cross-street in Menlo Park, California, uses its site constraints as design opportunities. A solid 14-foot-high exterior wall protects this residence from unwanted sounds, views and light, yet feels natural with its delicately textured concrete formwork and visual language. This solid exterior is punctuated with spaces for nearby trees to integrate into the living space. This building’s courtyard-style layout enables controlled sunlight to enter its private outdoor landscape while strategically filtering wind to improve airflow. These solid forms contrast with delicate partitions that sensitively open up the connections between public and private programs.
The integration of natural light elevates the experience of the Modal Home. This residence’s primary exterior wall is illuminated with an in-grade linear light source that applies a smooth focal glow to its façade. On the interior side of this wall, the ceiling elements are pulled away from the concrete wall for sunlight to graze the wall texture and illuminate the hallway. Specially designed skylights penetrate interior and exterior spaces of this home and frame views of the sky. Moments of transparency are used throughout Modal Home, which enable light and views to flow through these spaces.
Modal Home’s artificial lighting complements its architecture. Cove lighting throughout the interior and exterior creates a warm focal glow. The downlights tactfully placed through this interior program do not detract from the home’s design aesthetic and add sparkle to the spaces. The skylights in the residence’s living and dining areas feature hidden LED sources that outline the voluminous skylights. Elegant decorative lighting further develops the interior spaces of the Modal Home, while quiet landscape lighting fits perfectly with its calm, inviting exterior environment. Sensations of light and the elements bring the Modal Home to life.
Steven Holl
REACH Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Lighting Consultant: L’Observatoire International
Façade Consultant: Thornton Tomasetti
Landscape Architect: Edmund D Hollander Landscape Architects
Steven Holl celebrates the legacy of late President John F. Kennedy with the REACH Kennedy Center for Performing Arts by inspiring the next generations. This art center’s pavilions integrate with its landscape, creating a human-centric relationship with the surrounding community environment. At this site, children are invited to play atop the creative landscape elements, which is a green roof over the interior program. Pavilion façade lighting techniques include wall washing, translucent glow and focal highlights, which are visible from far away. The architecture of this center carves into its landscape with solid forms with subtle curves that shape the exterior and interior spaces while informing circulation. These artistically building volumes transform in the evening with tactful moments of façade lighting.
The circulation of this arts center plays a dynamic role when experiencing the space. A raised walkway connects pedestrians to the site, a pleasant open exterior environment. The landscape is pulled up to express energy and activity within, shown with translucent glowing facades. The exterior walkway funnels into the interior circulation that is hidden from the outside. Holl uses compression and expansion to guide users through the spaces.
The interior programs of this center are distinguished by their unique design concepts and lighting. Holl uses the curvilinear building forms to inform and light the interior. Spaces at this arts center feature lighting that grazes special wall textures, crafted appearances of daylighting, and sparkling atmospheres with hanging pendant lights. The artistically crinkled wall textures provide acoustical treatment to the center’s sound-sensitive spaces. This performing arts center acts as a living monument through its architecture and relates pedestrians to significant surrounding sites. The REACH Kennedy Center for Performing Arts subverts the typically formal architecture in Washington D.C. with organic spaces that generate a profound experience and connection to nature.
Nancy and Rich Kinder Museum of Fine Arts
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Lighting Consultant: L’Observatoire International
Façade Consultant: Knippers Helbig
The Kinder Museum of Fine Arts addition is a luminous beacon in Houston, Texas. This project uses the concepts of music, harmony and light to inspire and give context to its museum art. This museum features a unique translucent glass-tube curtain wall with a fully glowing outward-facing façade that articulates the building as an ethereal object. Conversely, momentary spots of glow on quieter sides of the building’s exterior allude to interior activity. The smooth tubular façade acts as a cold-jacket through its materiality and stack effect ventilation, which significantly reduces solar heat gain for the building. While this building is primarily wrapped in the glowing façade, special views are also opened up to exterior spaces, creating a sense of porosity.
The Kinder Museum’s flowing concave roof design illustrates a relationship with the clouds and sky above. In contrast, this building features immersive tunnels that lead one into the building through volumes of colored light that open up to the main interior program. The interior of this museum uses natural and artificial lighting in complementary ways. The series roof elements pull the building volume open and enable daylight to slip in carefully. This language of curved roof elements is also used on the interior to form unique spaces and ephemeral lighting conditions. The organic flowing form of the interior is complemented by floating ceiling elements that fold into one another and push light through the spaces. Light directs users through this museum’s program, allowing the experience of the architecture to be the backdrop of the galleries and exhibitions.
The identifiable exterior characteristics of this museum invite one to a truly expansive interior. This museum’s architecture is an expression of nature and light, curating one’s sensory experience through the spaces. The Kinder Museum of Fine Arts uplifts art and culture for the community of Houston.
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Lighting Consultant: Renfro Design Group
Glass Consultant: R.A. Heintges & Associates
Landscape Architect: Gould Evans Goodman Associates
The architecture of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art contrasts the original existing Beaux-Arts building of 1933 present on site. This museum addition is notably offset from the main view of the original museum, highlighting the original building and landscape. Steven Holl’s approach was to create a “luminous interplay between architecture, landscape, and art,” which is foremost achieved through separated luminous rectilinear volumes that emerge from the ground, named five lenses.
Plans courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.
From a distance, these glowing volumes create a sculptural succession that appears to merge with the sky. The placement and shape of this museum’s building forms produce a “light cone of vision and movement” for one to see through the meandering landscape activity while curating perspectives of the overlapping building volumes. These phenomenal building forms produce an intentional progression of program and circulation. This museum’s façade conditions apply opacity and transparency to peer in and out. The double-layered translucent glass gathers and refracts the hidden LED light sources, which also give lighting to the sculpture garden at night. This dynamic façade system gathers warm air in the winter and becomes an exhaust in the summer, a clever building energy strategy for the seasonal swings of Kansas City, Missouri.
While the exterior landscape features calming open circulation, the interior circulation below directly connects the museum program exhibits. The bright exterior volumes contrast the delicate curved daylighting and shading elements on the interior. These mirrored arches, called breathing T’s, form sections of unique daylighting conditions applied to each gallery program, which structurally hold the façade while also providing space for HVAC flow from the air above. The curved ceiling elements bring quiet to the interior spaces as well as the artistic introduction of natural light. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art finds many opportunities to articulate its design concepts, using layers of light to tell a story. In the library, suspended linear lighting fixtures mimic the façade language and appear to be floating. The exterior landscape also connects to nature through its large reflecting pool named 34 Moons, which features glowing circles of light within the water. These glowing circles also illuminate the garage level directly below, recessed into a fluid-like undulating concrete ceiling. The entryway into the museum from the garage also uses fully lit bollards that provide way-finding and further the glowing aesthetic. This museum addition connects one with nature through its green roof landscape and many trees that also provide heat absorption and stormwater control. Steven Holl’s team achieves tranquility and an elemental connection to architecture through this work.
Rubenstein Commons
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Lighting Consultant: L’Observatoire International
Landscape Architect: Edmund D Hollander Landscape Architects
Sustainability: Transsolar
Geothermal: Wellspring Geothermal
Water Feature: AquaDesign
Rubenstein Commons, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey., is an architectural solace for its academic community and a prism of its environment. Inspired by the intertwining of nature and people, this space produces an ethereal experience for its users.
The seasons are experienced within this site’s landscape. Serene pools of water on the north, south and west sides of this building’s exterior reflect sunlight into the interior. The curved roof elements on this site bring daylight in from above, harvest rainwater and feature green roofs. Holl’s energy strategies bring comfort and sustainability to this architecture. Geothermal wells heat and cool this building through radiant floors. Active air humidity control and windows for ventilation improve this space’s air mixing and flow. The glass cavity wall of these commons is also used for insulation and heat displacement.
Plans courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.
The interior of Rubenstein Commons feels serene yet magical. The building’s ceiling elements overlap organically and appear to float, while also providing acoustical diffusion. This building’s voided spherical volumes create its unique spaces. Prismatic glass highlights this architecture’s interior with daylight’s natural rainbow spectrum of color. Custom glass-blown fixtures used in this space illustrate the concept of spectral lighting in an organic form. Well-hidden artificial lighting also complements this building’s daylighting, providing focal glow as its program shifts into the evening. This commons is a valuable collaboration space for scientists and scholars at the institute.
[…] Steven Holl uses large-scale facade lighting at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to create an architectural focal point in Kansas City, Missouri. […]