One room needs more than one type of light

A grid of downlights may provide plenty of illumination, but brightness alone does not make a room feel inviting. Well-designed interiors use different layers of light, each with its own purpose.

Ambient light

The general level of illumination in a room, from ceiling fixtures, wall lights, or indirect light reflected off walls and ceilings.

Task light

Light placed exactly where it is needed: over a kitchen worktop, beside a reading chair, at a desk, or around a bathroom mirror.

Accent light

Light that creates depth and draws attention to what makes an interior special, like an artwork, a textured wall, a beautiful piece of joinery, stone, shelving or an architectural feature.

Decorative light

A pendant above a dining table, a sculptural wall light or a floor lamp, a source of light that is also, in its own right, part of the interior.

The objective isn’t to switch everything on at once. It is to have the right combination available for different moments.

The same room should work differently throughout the day

Consider an open-plan kitchen and living space.

On a winter morning, you may want good general illumination and bright task lighting above the worktop. While cooking in the evening, the work surfaces still need to be properly lit, but the rest of the room doesn’t need to be equally bright. When dinner is served, the kitchen lighting can quieten while the pendant above the table and softer ambient lighting take over. Later in the evening, perhaps only a floor lamp, integrated joinery lighting and a subtle architectural light remain on.

It is still the same room. But it feels completely different.

This is why we prefer to place different lighting layers on separate, dimmable circuits. They can then be adjusted individually or, where appropriate, combined into pre-programmed scenes such as Cooking, Dining, Entertaining or Evening. Lighting-control systems can take this considerably further, combining multiple lighting zones, and even automated window treatments, into a single command.

The technology should make a home easier to use, not more complicated.

Three layers in one kitchen: pendant light over the island, recessed ambient light, and a warm wash under the open shelving. (Highwood project, Vaud)

We don’t just consider the fixture. We consider what the light is doing.

What are we trying to illuminate?

Sometimes the answer is a kitchen worktop or dining table. At other times it is a painting, the texture of a wall, the inside of a wardrobe, or the grain of a beautiful piece of timber cabinetry. This changes where a light should be positioned, its direction, beam angle and intensity.

It is also why lighting positions cannot be designed independently from the furniture plan. A pendant needs to relate to the dining table below it. Reading lights need to correspond with the furniture. Bedroom lighting needs to consider the bed and bedside tables. Kitchen lighting must work with the cabinetry, worktops and appliances.

Moving a light by even a small distance can make a noticeable difference to what it illuminates and how balanced a room feels. Placement should always respond to the furniture and to the surfaces or focal points being lit, rather than simply creating pools of light on the floor.

Indirect light can be just as important as direct light

Some of the most effective lighting in an interior is the light you barely notice.

LED lighting concealed within bespoke cabinetry, underneath shelving, behind a detail or within an architectural recess can softly illuminate another surface instead of shining directly into the room. This creates depth, and can emphasise materials and architecture without filling the ceiling with visible fittings.

But these details need to be designed early. Profiles require space. Drivers and transformers need accessible locations. Cabinetry has to incorporate the lighting correctly, and the electrician needs to know where power and controls are required.

Once the joinery has been manufactured or the ceiling finished, these opportunities become considerably more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to integrate cleanly. This is especially true in the stone villas and older apartments common across the Vaud Riviera, where existing ceilings and solid walls leave far less room to improvise once construction is under way than a new build does.

Horizontal LED strips bring out the relief of the wall tiles, a vertical strip inside the niche adds depth, and ceiling spots quietly do the functional work. Together, a bathroom with atmosphere. (Highwood project, Vaud)

2700K, 3000K — Why does it matter?

Not all white light is the same. Colour temperature, measured in Kelvin, determines whether white light appears warmer or cooler. In residential interiors, warm white light around 2700K to 3000K is commonly used, although the right choice depends on the room, the materials and the intended atmosphere.

But there is another specification we pay close attention to: CRI, the Colour Rendering Index.

High-quality light allows the colours and materials chosen for an interior to appear as intended. Natural stone, timber, fabrics, artwork and even paint colours can look noticeably different under poor-quality artificial light, a CRI of 90 or above is commonly recommended wherever accurate colour rendering matters.

For a carefully designed interior, that matters. There is little point spending months selecting exactly the right stone, timber and fabrics, if the lighting changes their appearance every evening.

And yes, we like dimmers

A room doesn’t need the same amount of light at 8am as it does at 9pm.

Dimming allows lighting to respond to both activity and atmosphere. More importantly, when different layers can be controlled independently, you are no longer choosing simply between on and off, you are choosing how you want the room to feel.

More sophisticated systems can also shift colour temperature as light levels fall. So-called warm-dim technology mimics a characteristic of traditional incandescent light: as it dims, its appearance becomes warmer.

For larger homes or more complex lighting schemes, automation can simplify this further. Instead of a wall filled with switches, selected combinations of lighting can be saved as scenes and recalled with a single command. But automation isn’t the objective in itself. The objective is an intuitive home.

Lighting a mountain chalet is its own discipline

In a chalet in Verbier, Crans-Montana or Champéry, lighting carries even more weight. Winter days are short, timber surfaces absorb more light than painted walls do, and a chalet is often used most heavily in the evening, after a day outdoors.

Warmer colour temperatures, generous accent lighting on timber and stone, and layered circuits that can take a room from bright and practical to low and restful matter even more here than in a lakeside apartment. Exterior and terrace lighting, approached with the same layered thinking, extends that atmosphere outside as well.

This is why lighting needs to be planned early

A good lighting plan connects to almost every other part of an interior project.

The furniture determines where light is needed. The kitchen determines where task lighting belongs. Bespoke cabinetry creates opportunities for integrated lighting. Materials influence colour temperature and light quality. Ceilings affect what can be recessed or concealed. And all of these decisions ultimately need to be translated into electrical points, circuits, dimmers and controls.

That is why lighting is part of our design process from the early stages of a renovation or new build, not something added once the interior is almost complete.

At Highwood, we develop the interior as a whole: space planning, kitchens and bathrooms, bespoke joinery, furniture, materials, lighting and electrical planning are considered together, and coordinated with the specialists involved in the project.

Because the best lighting isn’t necessarily the lighting you notice first. It’s the lighting that makes everything else in the room look and feel right.

Good lighting disappears into the room it was designed for. (Highwood project, Valais)

Questions we’re often asked

Can lighting be added after the ceiling is already closed?

Some of it, surface-mounted fittings, lamps and plug-in solutions can always be added later. Concealed or recessed lighting is a different matter: once joinery is built or a ceiling is finished, adding power, drivers and cabling cleanly becomes far more difficult, and is often not possible at all.

Do we really need a lighting-control system, or are dimmer switches enough?

For a single room, well-placed dimmer switches on separate circuits are often all that’s needed. A control system earns its place once a home has several zones, outdoor lighting or window treatments to coordinate, the value is in fewer switches to think about, not more technology for its own sake.

What colour temperature should we choose?

Warm white, around 2700K to 3000K, suits most living spaces, bedrooms and dining areas in a residential interior. Some working areas, such as a kitchen worktop or a home office, can take a slightly cooler, crisper light, but we would rarely recommend anything above neutral white in a home.

This overview sets out the principles we apply on every project; the right specification for a particular room still depends on its materials, its orientation and how it will actually be used.