The Lighter Side of Building

When I explain light working in my building design, I am simultaneously projecting myself as the technician of that light and the discover of it. In today’s high-tech world, light is “engineered transparency” – energy that can be bent, curved, and harnessed for architectural purposes. One need not resort to the filmy poetic mysticism of Louis Kahn (“We are made of light which has been spent”) in order to discuss the roles light plays in design.


Corbusier did famously proclaim, “Architecture is the skilful, judicious, magnificent play of volumes against light.” The problem with this profound quote is that our clients aren’t contracting us to create anything as remotely abstract as “play of volumes against light.” Yet what could be more important than to convey to them the action of light through architecture? Clients we know are focused on other specificities, almost none of which involve poetic versioning of the act of light- increasing daylight maybe-... sometimes, but not really much more than that. You can make drawings of light circulating through your designs on a computer – but words will inevitably need to supplement graphics. How can you shed light on light?

While recently walking through our newly completed building, I did think, “The light is working in this building like sound does in music- it is everywhere, now alive, now subtle, now a whisper- ah here is its centre.. and so on.” Initially , I thought I was simply substituting the concept of light working as a slightly nuanced contrast to Corbu’s notion of light playing, a subtle nod to the high Indian sun writ large. But then I realized that our design could actually be verbally evoked in terms of how its architecture makes light an active partner in an ongoing dramatic story located at the edge between architecture and the world beyond the building.

To say this simply: the edge of our design is where interior and exterior energies – light, air, atmosphere – engage in cross-talk. Your architecture engages in a conversation with its surroundings. Because the interactions of architecture with light, not to mention the rest of the environment, are so difficult to verbalize, why not personify architecture and light as partners in conversation?

So now next time I will talk about how light plays and works throughout the design of buildings, using the light flows in our own office space for examples in meetings with clients. Perhaps I will just suggest that light can be thought of as a working partner to talk with.

Heh, heh, talk about keeping the conversation light – but shimmering.