Senior Lighting Designer Feras Abdallah shares his lighting design philosophy and the importance of both light and dark in design practice.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I was born and raised in Lebanon – a country with limited access to electricity for as long as I can remember, so it’s slightly ironic that I grew up to become a lighting designer. My childhood taught me the value of darkness as I learnt to navigate the unlit city streets of the night and follow ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’. These formative years in Lebanon taught me to chase the light, and that you need to concede to the darkness to really understand its intricacies.
What being a lighting designer mean to you?
It is easy to assume that our job is to eliminate the darkness, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Designing with light requires a collaborative response and the ability to balance light and dark. We need the depth and juxtaposition provided by the darkness to accentuate the elements that we want to celebrate. When designers lean into the darkness and look to achieve contrast, we can create a sense of balance that adds visual interest, and instinctively guides occupants through a space. This equilibrium is crucial to our art form, because you need a considered interplay between both elements to truly bring out the characteristics of the space.
When you take the time to look at the world around you, everything is governed by opposing energies that complement each other to create balance. The principle of Yin and Yang is that there can be no light without darkness, no day without night, and no positive without negative. These entities are never static – they flow in and out of each other and are infinitely connected. It’s an ideology that I aim to replicate in my designs.
Home of Carlsberg, Copenhagen © Daniel Rasmussen
How does this underlying philosophy inform your work?
First and foremost, I try to get a feel for the space and understand its intention. I ask myself how I would like to be guided through that environment, and what that experience should feel like. When you fully immerse yourself in a project and put yourself in the mind of the end user, it’s much easier to determine what needs to be illuminated and how to celebrate the architecture.
Another core consideration is how we as designers are cautious with light – it shouldn’t dominate. In some instances, it is appropriate to be bold and allow spaces to remain in the darkness, because designing without light can sometimes speak louder. But in most cases, darkness should be intertwined with illumination and not overpowered by it.
DC Restaurant, Park Row – London
Finally, it is important to remember the role that light and dark play in creating ambience. When it comes to generating atmosphere for example, lower light levels and diffuse light can be used to create a sense of intimacy and set the scene. It all comes back to this need for balance. As the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung once said, ‘there is no light without shadow,’, so let’s embrace the darkness and seamlessly embed it into our lighting designs.
