david k warfel
The final article in my series for Designing Lighting is out, and it is bittersweet to have wrapped up a year of writing for this industry publication. I'm excited for the next challenge (stay tuned, I have another series or two beginning in other publications soon), and grateful for the space and opportunity to write... Continue Reading →
Tonight we are going to a nearby restaurant for the first time, a local Italian spot with a reputation for meatballs. We will be evaluating the food to be certain, but also evaluating the atmosphere. Is it a place we would enjoy again? Would we bring friends or out-of-town family here? Our decision will likely... Continue Reading →
This post is a continuation of my Don't/Do This: Primary Bedroom exploration. My Don't/Do This series are a lot of fun to sketch and imagine. Too much fun, perhaps, as the post on primary bedrooms has now ballooned into three. Without much forethought, I find myself creating an increasingly comprehensive series aimed at comparing and... Continue Reading →
If light itself is a gift, what kind of gift is it? Is it a new pair of socks, useful but not particularly exciting, or new electronics that are exciting now but will be obsolete in a few short years? Is light something handmade with love, with no monetary value but nonetheless priceless? Light, which... Continue Reading →
Light became a tool when I landed my first job in architectural lighting following graduate school, but my journey did not continue on a tidy linear path. I learned quite a bit from my employers and coworkers and enjoyed the excitement of working on high-profile projects in downtown Chicago and beyond. Unfortunately, I was also young and... Continue Reading →
I had a great time joining founder and host Mark R LePage for an episode of the EntreArchitect podcast, now live for listening HERE. We talk about my journey from architecture into lighting and look into how architects might help their projects look, work, and feel better after dark. And is it fate that I... Continue Reading →
Of all the moments of discovery, connection, and understanding provided at LightFair this year, none stirred my emotions or challenged my thinking as deeply as the fifty minutes allotted to the Light + Justice conference session. Led by Edward Bartholomew, Mark Loeffler, and Lya S. Osborn, the presentation shook up my thinking and clarified my focus.... Continue Reading →
One of my writing goals is to simplify the scientific and technical aspects of light into actionable advice, and the Don’t/Do This series is perhaps the most aligned with this purpose. The intent is to provide a simple list of strategies to utilize in a home, space by space, alongside pitfalls to avoid. Sounds easy, right? Working... Continue Reading →
The fifth article in my series exploring the past, present, and future of lighting at home has just been published in Designing Lighting magazine. Too often, point-by-point lighting calculations, sometimes called heat maps, are used to justify a lighting proposal of recessed downlights. This is the same method used for gas station canopies, but homeowners... Continue Reading →
Of all five (or six?) of the promises of light, light that helps us Do Better is the one most of us think we know. It doesn’t take a lighting designer to understand that, if we want to read a magazine, we need a light on it. Does it really matter if it comes from a... Continue Reading →
the language of light 