FEATURE ARTICLES

“Motor City” Lighting Design

What are the particular considerations when lighting cars, an expertise that Stefan has perfected for nearly 30 years?

“Because they’re real big and shiny and they reflect light, the special challenge is to use techniques that illuminate this large, specular object while reducing glare. You have to have good color rendering. It’s always challenging,” Stefan explains.

“Plus, they’ve always put cars in rooms with big windows. If you don’t control that part of the lighting in a dealership, you could create contrast glare coming from the outside in. If you’re standing in a showroom with 100 footcandles inside and up to 7,000 outside, you could be distracted by that. You want people to stay focused on the product and the conversation, and you want to reduce the visual distraction as much as possible.”

Good lighting consultants are actually “visual consultants” on projects.

“They ask, ‘What’s the goal for the illumination in this space? What’s the goal for improving visibility?’ If it means putting shading systems on windows, that has to be brought up,” Stefan says. There may be other visibility issues, as well—such as task lighting or polished granite floors that function like a mirror and affect the lighting design.

Stefan sees his role as bringing the information to the architects or project leaders. “Depending on how they react to it, we know what to do. Let’s say they want a specular tile ceiling and they wish to do uplighting. Well, obviously we can’t do that, so we present a new technique to avoid any problems.”