Lighting

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
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Michael Jones

Michael Jones

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Any experienced lighting designers want to help out with some conceptual lighting design?
 
I've designed aircraft lighting systems, does that count?

Seriously, though, I've been around a lot of stuff and might have a useful thing or two to throw in. Let the ideas fly!!

Darryl.....
 
What kind of lighting are you going for? Just something that looks neat?
 
Hello Michael, say, I've had quite a few experiences specifying lighting for fixtures and other things for Macys. One of the finest lines I've seen is by a company that makes all types of track, spot, recessed, straight and curved monorail low voltage track and suspended cable systems, and other fantastic designs. All with remote electronic/transformer systems. Heavy duty wiring things too. I'll have to dig out my catalog and get the name as it escapes me at the moment, but their stuff is undoubtably the best I've ever seen. Very high tech, sophisticated install methods and wiring and VERY cool stuff. I think it would be great in your setting. Let me know if your interested and I'll get back to you with the name and maybe the URL. But I can tell you right off the bat, EXPENSIVE is the word. I'd love to have some of em if I could afford it but its WAY out of my league. :D Lots of stainless steel, and brushed Nickel, Italian glass, very detailed standoffs and connections.....man, you HAVE to see this stuff:eek: :p WAY TOO COOL!

fitZ

oh...here it is;)
http://www.formplusfunction.com/cable.html

Techlighting...no less, HA!
 
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Well, I am afraid the lighting designs I do are of a much more temporary nature. I did have one stay up for two weeks once. Outdoor rock festival, don't you know.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
The lighting will of course be for my studio.
So lets look at each room:

Kitchen
Nothing special here, probably a single track with 3 heads.

Bathroom
I don't envision much more than a bathbar over the sink.

Live Room
I plan on sconces on the 3 furr-downs in this room. I saw some really cool ones on-line; sort of a copper and steel fixture with a cylindrical frosted vase for the shade. It looked really cool! I think I'll end up ordering those.

Then I have drops for 2 series of tracks, one on each side of the ceiling peak. Most of the track lighting systems I've seen are fairly contemporary looking. It'd be nice to find something that went with the sconces.

Furthermore; John Sayers suggested that I do a sort of drop/acoustic ceiling in the area above the piano. I've already framed that up, and you can see a picture of it in this forum.
So what I'll end up with there is a flat acoustic ceiling, with hanging bass traps above it. So I was thinking, since it'd be difficult to illuminate that area with the tracks, that it might be well advised to do some cans in that area.
:confused:
But I don't have a feeling for how many, and where. I'd like the area to have a somewhat "intimate" feeling, but I'd still need to be able to read sheet music when sitting at the piano. And I don't want the cans to retract from the feeling provided by the sconces.
What I'm most concerned about is mixing all these types of lighting, and still being able to maintain some sort of design continunity in the space.
It shouldn't look like a hodge-podge of styles.

Drum Room
There's 2 wall sconces flanking the drum kit in this room. For the sake of continunity, I'll use the same sconces as the Live Room.
Then there's a series of tracks at about 14' on the ceiling.

Vocal Booth
There are 3 recessed cans in the corners of the room here, and plenty of outlets that could allow for some sort of "torchier"?

Control Room
I'm kind of lost here.
I was going to have a series of mini pendants that hang from the ceiling, and surround the mixing desk, but after looking at the electrical drops, I have doubts that that will work out. There is a pair of recessed cans in the back of the room that shine upwards, illuminating a diffuser.

So that's kind of where I'm at.
Like I said, design continunity is important. It's OK to mix styles, as long as the styles can draw from elements of each other.

Any thoughts, catalogues, or other information?
 
Hello Michael, I believe that in order do determine sq footage, locations of elect, items of lighting interest, such as console, piano, COKE MACHINE:D, etc, maybe use your CAD plan and do a reflected ceiling plan, and have it plotted. Take the plot to some lighting outlet places, and I'd bet one of them at least, will help plan your lighting, as lumens, wash, wattage and all the other specifying factors are a real specialty and they may be able to enlighten you with ideas, and or other factors layman may not be aware of. One thing is for sure, you "shouldn't" penetrate your shell for recessed cans. Even open j-boxes in the ceiling present problems as they may need to be there for fastening certain types of lighting fixtures., but I'm sure you've worked those out. And if NOT, then the plan will help determine WHAT you have to install and how your going to install them, in regards to the type boxs etc you will need, BEFORE you sheet rock. And btw, arn't you using RC on the ceiling? That in itself seems to present some lighting fixture pre-planning issues. Well, this is about all I can offer. Good luck Michael.
fitZ
 
Here is something elst to consider. Lighting fixtures look really neat, but lighting consistency for general illumination is difficult to achieve. Can lights and track lights will produce shadow areas because of their directionality. The best way to get non-shadowy lighting in a room is to use an indirect lighting scheme. Typically indirect lights are mounted in a kind of soffet that points upwards such that the lights are recessed inside the soffet and the light is reflected off the ceiling. It may not have the ambient effect that fixtures have, but the quality of light and overall visibility will be better. I would use this technique as general lighting for any room where music needs to be read, and use fixtures for accents and mood lighting.

Just my $0.02.

Darryl.....
 
Here's the wall sconces I was thinking of:
 

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And here's the outdoor sconces:
 

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They're different, but share enough similar design elements to work together.
If I could just find some tracks with that sort of look or feel... I think it'd be cool. :cool:

I like the idea of indirect lighting, I going to explore that further.

I'm getting ready for insulation and drywall, so there's no changing the electrical after that.
 
TexRoadkill said:
A popular look right now is mini pendant lighting. Those are the small hanging lights that they use over bars and in kitchens. You could hang some over the piano and control room areas that need fill light.

Here are some examples http://www.elights.com/deshouspenco.html

http://www.lightinguniverse.com/products/default.aspx?tid=439

http://www.lighting-fixtures-ceiling-fans.com/store/PPF/Category_ID/143/products.asp
Click to expand...
See, that's how I have the CR set up right now... for mini pendant lighting.
After the electricians came in and provided the drops... it gave me reservations about using mini pendants. With the drops there, you get a real feel for how it'll look, and I'm wondering what with all those pendants hanging down that it might be... unsightly or cluttered?
 
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