Light Series 4

     Semi-Direct Downlight Indirect Uplight Lighting Conditions

                                      Wall Grazing

             Cove lighting, wall washing and task lighting

                                Slot and accent Lighting

Sound Experiences

I was raised in a California ranch with high ceilings.  When I was younger, the floor covering was vinyl with few household furnishings.  I can recall the house echoing.  My brother and I use to yell across from one end of the house to each other, just to hear acoustics of the space.  As I grew, so did the furnishings in our home.  The apex of the house was about 20 feet high, where my father built a library wall filled with books.  The vinyl floor was replaced with thick carpeting.  Lots of furnishing filled the walls and spaces in every room.  Our home became cozier and quieter.

I use to go to church with my family in a very Old Catholic Church building with a transept, nave and high ceilings.  The priest would step into the nave to give his sermons to the congregation.  His voice would carry to the back row of the church without microphone assistance.  The Italian priest was a very good public speaker annunciating every syllable in a rhythmic tone to reverberate alone the hard surfaces towards the rear of the church.      

Many years later as the congregation grew; the Church built a large auditorium below the school as an annexation to hold larger groups for their sermons.  To enter the auditorium, you would need to walk one flight down, but daylight would still enter into the space from windows located high up on the walls.  It was a very large rectangular space with a flat ceiling.  A sound system was required for the space in order to be heard clearly.  Sound did not travel well in the space, but it was still a noisy space.

When I recall the Old Italian priest with his sympathetic note; I remember he only gave his sermons in the old church.  Sometimes his sermons were in Latin, with a musical and religious tone modulating at a perfect pitch throughout the space.  When looking for which sermon to attend on Sundays, my siblings and I would always request to attend the mass in the church.  At the time, I thought it was the visual experience of the environment with their beautiful stain glass windows, carved moldings and décor that inspired our choice; but now I realize that we made a subconscious decision of preference,  because it was the acoustical experience within the church that added to our enjoyment of the space.

As a young student, I recall a fellow male student who was an excellent whistler.  On one occasion during our math class, we all stopped to listen to him whistling from one end of the empty hall corridor down to the other the tune “Andy Griffith of Mayberry.” It was a great whistling tone that reverberated wonderfully down the hard surfaces of the corridor to our attentive ears; a very pleasant memory of math class that I recall fondly today because to the auditory enjoyment of that experience.      

When I was younger, I use to take guitar lessons.  I was never a very good guitar player, but I enjoyed listening to the reverberating sound from the strumming of the strings on my Old Spanish guitar.  The guitar was small with a wooden frame and metal strings of different thicknesses.  I still possess this guitar in my mother’s home, kept tucked away neatly in its case.  Occasionally, when I go home to mom’s house, I pull out of my closet that old guitar, just to listen to its beautiful tone once again, and I’m instantly transported back to my youth.  I smile, cause the sound just washes away the years.        

Illuminance Reflectance Transmittance

Illuminance - Reflectance - Transmittance

Light Model

Light Model Project

Team members 

Shahrzad Sabzehar, Majedeh Modarres, Ayten Nadeau, and Eileen Carroll

Concept

Spectrum of Shadow Forms

Humans see objects through reflections of light from surfaces of forms.  Shadows are partial obscurities of light casting exaggerations of the form in space.  Our light light model depicts architecture form to focus the reflections of light into a sculptured spectrum of shadow forms to energized the space with playful delight and uniqueness of character.

Poster

Model

The angular form supports the exaggeration shadows with a colorful spectrum of light from the three primary light colors, red, green, and blue.  Blue and red light together creates magenta.  Red and green light creates yellow.  Green and blue light creates cyan.

Light Series 1

Light Sketches Series 1

LIGHT SKETCH SERIES 3

Light Sketch Series 2

The Weatherspoon Gallery is one of my favorite interior spaces.  The combination of volume with architecture details highlighted with quality layers of lighting, compliment the space into a harmonious balance of uniqueness.  The use of daylight interacting with volume captures the viewers interest immediately upon entering the space.  The halogen lights supports the daylight atmosphere of stars as the architecture separates shadow from light.  The culminated result is an effective use of lighting to display fine artwork, while enhancing the museum experience.

The Pet Store Plus on High Point Rd in Greensboro is a very good example of quality linear fluorescent lighting in a commercial retail space.  Even though, the field of the store has only one layer of lighting by the fluorescent bulbs, it is evenly uniform throughout the store, and effectively used for display of merchandise.  This strong luminance feature of the space invites the patron to linger as they ponder their selections.  

The China Cafe on Spring Garden is an example of very poor lighting conditions in a restaurant.  I illustrate the pendent lighting as showing some illuminance, but that is not the case for this space.  The lights are not on, and in some cases do not even have bulbs.  The pendent fixtures themselves are low to the table with the base fanning out too far for comfort.  The main lighting of the space is fluorescent bulbs integrated into the ceiling with plastic diffusers.  The plastic diffusers are old with a yellow film casting an uncomfortable luminance.  The lighting is sparse and uneven within the space.  No one ever eats in the restaurant; it is primarily used for take out.  I believe the only reason patrons frequent the space is because the food is very good.  To change the lighting conditions for the space, I think pendent lights would work well in the booths where a fixture was better suited for the size of the space, and raised at an appropriate height.  Fluorescent lighting works well within this space if there are more bulbs, and the diffuser covers were replaced with new ones.