This book examines how the context of a project can provide a causative force for creating an appropriate architectural lighting design solution. Some of the questions it addresses are as follows:
- Why should the lighting world be flat, and at the cost of the amazing variety of local nuances and ideas that can be incorporated into the architectural design process and solutions?
- When did darkness become bad?
- Should the dialog not be about embracing the differences in culture, design approach, and other conditions that each region of the world provides, while embracing light as a universal medium?
- Why are we looking to build an illuminated world at night that looks similar to other places?
- How do the new lighting technologies impact our evolving zeitgeist?
These ideas and concepts are highlighted in the 18 essays written by the author in this book. These are further illustrated with examples from over 80 completed projects spread over 23 countries in the past 18 years of being in practice. Through this treatise, the author also shares ground-breaking research, where he discusses a holistic approach for using lighting to create spaces for health & wellness.
The book is available for purchase now! For more information, please contact our publisher ORO Editions California at info@oroeditions.com
Showcasing how local contexts
inform design decisions
Showcasing real world examples of
contextualizing light in built environment
That show & explain each project’s processes, technical Drawings, renderings & final results.
Abhay M Wadhwa, Founder and Design Principal of AWA Lighting Designers seeks innovative solutions that challenge our zeitgeist, and utilizes lighting beyondits conventional purpose. He craftsstories using lighting to create evocative experiences. Evocative lighting design nestles comfortably with artistry. He has also been referred to as the “Poet of Light” by a Canadian journalist and in lighter moments takes this title very seriously.
Headquartered in New York City, AWA is an international architectural lighting design firm founded by Abhay M Wadhwa. We design and implement lighting solutions for a diverse range of projects internationally—creating solutions that evoke a sense of place instead of mere space. We pride ourselves on our adept application of creative and technical methods, aswe embrace diverse influences, ideas, and design paradigms. The result is lighting design that remains ever-aware of the people who will live, work,communicate, and interact in the buildings and structures we light. Our clients value our design sensibility for the moods and moments it elicits,and the ways it illuminates the materials and structures.
Having worked in the fields of light, vision and consciousness over the past 45 years, I was deeply touched by Abhay Wadhwa’s exquisite illustration of the use of light in the field of architecture. If a picture is a thousand words, then CONTEXTUALIZING LIGHT is a view of the universe -- a feast for our eyes – a tapestry of sheer beauty created through the inspiration touching Abhay Wadhwa’s artistry over the last 25 years. This book is gorgeous!
Over the years, AWA Lighting Designers has been an essential part of our creative process, and one of the most unique firms to work with in the industry. Their understanding of light as an art form that can be sculpted through shadow and nuance, rather than simply a utility, is why their collaboration on projects has made such an impact. Their use of technology as part of the design process has helped numerous design teams to both visualize the effects of lighting on space and research the effects on the human psyche.
In works that span nearly two decades and several continents, AWA's each project expresses AWA's conviction that light informs and even creates experience, and that light itself is bound inextricably with form, space, volume, culture and human perception - the very stuff of architecture.
“Such a pleasure to view and read Abhay”s new book, Contextualizing Light! I remember fondly Abhay as a confident young graduate student at the Lighting Research Center. His new book demonstrates what I had hoped he would do – continue a lifelong journey of learning and producing. What strikes me most about this book are the diversity and quality of the work. As the book title implies, the diversity of designs for different cultures and countries in context is extraordinary. Of course, as I expected, the quality of the images accompanied by his statements of philosophy show how deeply Abhay dives into each and every project. Fundamentally, Abhay hopes that lighting design will never become a cut-and-paste exercise, as is tempting with today’s canned lighting design programs. Abhay pushes himself for excellence and it is clear he very much wishes his lighting design contemporaries would as well. This book may not affect them, but perhaps it will inspire the next generation of lighting designers to excel, in context."