Layer Your Lighting Design for Drama and Functionality

By Tim McKeough

Lighting can have a dramatic effect on the way a room looks and feels. When designing a home, planning the lighting scheme is “beyond critical,” said Alex Miller, a partner at the New York-based architecture and lighting design firm Taylor and Miller. “Lighting is a very soulful thing,” he noted, which directly changes the way we perceive a space.

“When you walk into a restaurant, a home or a hotel room, and think it’s cold or uninviting, it’s usually not the architecture,” Mr. Miller said. “The problem is usually the lighting. If the lighting was intimate and warm, then your perception of the space would be different.”

At the same time, lighting has an important functional role to play by illuminating circulation paths, work areas and decorative objects. In some rooms, having the ability to adjust the lighting helps them serve multiple purposes, such as a dining area that doubles as a place for homework or a media room that can also be a place for exercise.

Mr. Miller and other architects and designers typically create appealing, functional lighting schemes by layering different types of fixtures together rather than blasting a room with a single overpowering light. Here’s how to do it like the pros do.

Take Stock of Natural Light