Category Archives: LightSpace

LightSpace: Mercury Floating

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Mercury floating or floating mercury best describes this light fixture we chanced upon recently. It is bizarre. We thought it was to be viewed from down below, being a ceiling fixture and all, but no. It looks just odd from down below. From the side it looks just passable. And the light reflecting off the shiny surface probably generates some artistic shadows somewhere but we were too blinded to notice.

Who designs these things? Probably someone famous.
Who specs these things? Probably someone famous as well.

Sigh.

Side view

Bottom view

LightSpace: Reflections

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Every now and then we should think about the quality of our lives. Sound profound? Well hardly, if you find yourself making a trip to the hospital. No bad news though. But still, looking at scores of people thronging through the doors-sick, ailing, sometimes happy but mostly tired and sad. It makes one wonder….

We find that little glimmers of Light, like in the images below, make it worthwhile to go to a hospital. Where else would you see such subtle beauty?

Reflections1

This one is sunlight reflecting off one of the Sloan Kettering Buildings onto the chimney tower of the Kettering Labs on 68th street. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

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Candles, Welcome to our new project.

LightSpace:Candles

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Looking around for the effects of Candles in spaces. After the invention of the lightbulb, candles are mostly frequently used for decorative or aromatic purposes. Unless you are a bar in MePa ofcourse.

Interesting effect of this decorative wall-seems to form a large backdrop to the proceedings without overdoing the whole “so many candles” thing.

Shutter-Priority

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Discovered the “shutter priority” setting on the camera recently. This came especially handy in taking evening shots of the 9/11 memorial. It is a wonderfully serene place. Congratulations to Michael Arad for the design of the memorial pools and the grounds around it. Overheard at the memorial…”I think whoever designed this think could never have imagined that it would look THIS beautiful”

And we agree.

LightSpace: Welcome to our new project

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Light makes a huge difference to a space. You knew that though…

So we are going to get right to the point then. The purpose of the “LightSpace” project is to find and highlight natural and man-made plays of light and shadow in the world around us. Please note that unlike other “design” blogs, our purpose is NOT to highlight a good lighting design versus a bad one. It is only to OBSERVE Light as it manifests in space.

Let us explain:

Light is what makes up our world. It separates day from night. It is much like Space, in that it fills up the volume that exists between solid objects. That is why “Light” and “Space” can act as the same thing in the design world.

A sparsely populated space (a room with less/no furniture) is also called a “light” and “bright” space. A well-lit room, or a space designed to highlight white furniture, paint and accents is also described using similar terminology. That is a semantic example.

A physical/design example is bright beams of light that are projected upwards to mark the Twin Towers near Sep 11, every year in New York. Those beams of light are a fascinating embodiment of the Twin Towers that used to be there. Need we say more?

Image ©2011 Songquan Deng. (Check out his Flickr-stream here. More information on him here.)

Through this series we hope to highlight examples of how light defines a volume or a designed surface, acts as a sculpture or just is. Like KidSpace, this is an ongoing project so if you have any comments or a valuable contribution to make, feel free to email us. We always respond:)