Vertical illumination: Regent Lighting

Scenic lighting. Vertical illumination.

Why reinvent the wheel? It was in the 50s that the famous architectural and stage lighting pioneer Richard Kelly divided light into three categories. For him, the basic form of light was “ambient light” - light to see. “Focal glow” was light to look at objects or scenes, and “play of brilliance” was light to view. When talking of vertical lighting, these fundamentals are as valid now as they were then. Different situations, such as architectural lighting (indoor and outdoor), retail lighting (food and non-food) and museum and gallery lighting, dictate how they should be applied. In architectural lighting, the subject of wall lighting is very important. In the field of shop lighting, topics such as shelfwindow- and food- lighting are important, whilst vertical lighting in museums and/or galleries deals with the illumination of paintings and objects.

: Architectural lighting

: Retail lighting

: Museum and gallery lighting

Architectural lighting

This can involve using illumination to delimit spatial boundaries. Vertical illumination is essential for well-being; it allows you to “understand” a room more quickly, it makes your surroundings more pleasant, it allows you to feel subliminal emotions. Wall lighting ranges from uniformly diffuse to strongly accentuated (scallopping). Other than store front realisations in high-rise architecture (e.g. OutMax), retail lighting is also now being used for architectural purposes.

Wall lighting

A façade, illuminated with a soft uniform light, can be its very own understatement; it can, for example, be part of a corporate identity. Should one require a striking and dramatic façade, then the right lights in the right positions will constitute the perfect tools. Regardless of basic and background illumination, vertical lighting is essential, i.e. sources of illumination high off the ground can not replace vertical illumination.

Vertical illumination