The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge. -from The Tao of Pooh
I founded Hugh Lighting Design on a few basic philosophies I developed while learning under Candace Kling in Washington, D.C. for nine years and heading the lighting group of a large AE firm in Chicago for three years after that. At that time (1998), lighting design was giving way to more quantitative calculations and metrics and less gut feel and design intuition. I am a math and science nerd as well as a designer, so I can see it from both sides. However, I was seeing a shift in how design was appreciated and what was being measured as a barometer for a successful design. There was more emphasis on being technically correct and photograph-worthy (even in those days before Instagram) so that the project could reach a certain level of acclaim. Awards were being given out to projects that proved X amount of light levels and that looked good in magazines. I served as a judge for many lighting industry competitions and often found myself looking at submittals thinking, “But what is it like to be in that space?” I also saw projects that were remarkably designed and well presented but that when the time came to build them, inevitably were compromised by budget, the realities of physics, or time spent maintaining them. Thus, I wanted Hugh Lighting Design to offer creative realistic design for all the people who would interact with the actual space (isn't that everyone?). My background and passions of theater and psychology allowed for this combination to be driving factors for our designs. My late boss and mentor (the aforementioned Candy Kling) would say, “I don’t care how great it looks. If no one wants to be in the space, it’s not a good design.” I had started to follow Taoism and Zen in college, and these too influenced me to focus on user acceptance and finding the simple solution that is “meant to be.” We approach a project not as how we can make it, but rather, what is its inherent personality and how can we bring that out. We ask our clients, “If this project was a person, who is it?” For example, is it an athlete, a lawyer, an actor, or Frank Lloyd Wright? From there, we can find the inherent qualities and architectural/interior language to bring out. The space should be what it wants to be without suffocating overthinking and forced effects for the sake of themselves. For us, it’s when people love the space and never mention the lighting (unless of course, we intended the effect), that we believe we have been successful. -PETER
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