david k warfel
I have fallen into the habit of stating that while I personally celebrate Christmas, professionally I celebrate Winter Solstice. Winter Solstice, which for me in Wisconsin, USA, is December 21st, marks the point in the Earth's annual orbit around the sun where we "tip" back towards longer days. As a lighting designer, that means that... Continue Reading →
Is our binary view of the industry letting us off the hook? In an era of polarization, fundamentalism, and absolutist ideologies, it is easy for me to fall into statements like "builders install the cheapest lighting possible so they can maximize profits" or "interior designers think lighting means a trendy chandelier." But is the world... Continue Reading →
I am working on a article extolling the virtues of low voltage power distribution and I find myself wondering, as Mike Teolis from Colorbeam said, "can anyone give me a valid reason why we need 120 volt infrastructure for a 14 watt LED putting out 1000 lumens?" I love to geek out on lighting technology... Continue Reading →
Recently I had the joy of virtually visiting a university classroom to talk about lighting with students. Since I can talk about lighting for hours and hours and hours, I usually ask the professor if there is a particular aspect of lighting they would like me to cover. One of my lectures this fall was... Continue Reading →
Budget conversations are my least favorite part of the lighting design process, though I have learned to dive right in rather than soft-pedal the costs and cause everyone bigger headaches down the road. The simple (unfortunate) truth is that really good lighting cannot be delivered for the same price as really bad lighting. Complicating the... Continue Reading →
I am continually amazed at the lack of color in our lighting, at home and at work. We wear colored clothing, drive colored cars, paint our homes and cabinets in color, and hang colored photos and art on our walls. We choose colored carpets and colored ceramic tile, we buy colored backpacks and purses, some... Continue Reading →
My THINK LIGHT series is my outlet for being a lighting geek. Perhaps I should rephrase that - this is my outlet for being a lighting pseudo-geek. I do love the science, geometry, biology, psychology, and technology of light, but I am no scientist, biologist, psychologist, or technologist. There is a limit to how geeky... Continue Reading →
This post might make some of my lighting colleagues a little angry, because I'm going to claim that light meters are nearly useless tools. I'm going to claim that the numbers we produce, the foot-candle levels or lux we calculate and measure, the math behind lighting design is all rather pointless. (And before you write... Continue Reading →
After more than twenty years in the lighting profession it is tempting to think I know it all. The truth, of course, is that I possess but a tiny fraction of the collected knowledge of light- and our body of understanding is growing much faster than I can learn. Let me give you an example.... Continue Reading →
A few years ago I wrote a pulp piece for Houzz.com on how to choose the "right" color temperature of light. At the time there were just a few choices homeowners faced with lighting: choose 2700°K warm white, 3000°K not-quite-as-warm light, or perhaps 3500°K "neutral" white or 4000°K cool light. I recommended 2700°K for traditional... Continue Reading →
the language of light 