Recently, I’ve had mixed feelings about how a site of an ongoing project was lit at night. As this was the third test, I wondered how many lighting iterations we'd have to go through in order to achieve a satisfactory result. The warmth and brightness of lights often defy aesthetic expectation despite its intended technical specifications.

In the past, lighting a house at night was mainly a functional exercise. Generally, light fittings were incandescent and fluorescent. They were usually accented with focus lights fitted with halogen bulbs, but because of their high energy consumption they were used sparingly. Now, LED lighting dominates the market, replacing energy saving bulbs. The decision to use LED lighting is nevertheless a problematic one due to issues of reliability and durability, coupled with the design challenge of matching the site's intended ambience. Despite these concerns, I still tend to opt for LED lighting due to its low energy consumption.

I am grateful to this group of young people from the lighting supplier for working late so that we could evaluate the options. We have not found the perfect solution just yet, but we are definitely getting closer to it. I suppose there is no shortcut to success.