Apartment Lighting Design

The lighting design of the apartment is very important in the arrangement. The right approach to the selection and placement of fixtures as a result will not only provide the necessary lighting, but will also emphasize the necessary areas, emphasize the interior of the room and provide comfort and coziness. It will not be superfluous to note that by creating the right artificial lighting, you take care of your health - yours and your loved ones. How to properly make lighting in the apartment is described in detail in this article.

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Types of lighting and rules for working with them

Lighting design is created by working with such types of lighting:

• Natural. This type of lighting has to be used as it is, limited only to reflection, softening and scattering.
• General (background). If possible, this species should be shadowless, flood. For the sake of comfort and economy, in practice they achieve openwork shadows and partial shadows.

Important! Deep shadows create psychological discomfort for a person, since instinctively he feels danger.

• Local. This lighting performs the function of emphasizing the details of the interior and its decor, so the main rule of working with it is the choice of a suitable spectrum.
• Working. It is a local lighting, focused not on the subject, as is the case with the local, but on the visual sensitivity of a person. Working on the lighting design of the workspace, they select the optimal brightness and spectrum so that it is within the physiological perception.
• Decorative. This main requirement is put forward - lighting should not adversely affect human health.

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Lighting design. Rules and regulations

Lighting, first of all, should have a beneficial effect on the general state of health, especially vision and the psyche. The main requirements for natural and artificial lighting are to comply with the following parameters.

Illumination:

• Shared living rooms, kitchens and gyms should have an illumination of 150 lux.
• Children's room - 200 lux.
• Study - 300 lux.
• Toilet, combined bathroom, hallway - 50 lux.
• Bathroom, pool, sauna - 100 lux.

Important! For comparison: on a cloudy autumn day in the open air, the illumination is more than 10,000 lux.

KEO

In simple words, this coefficient represents the fraction of natural light that enters the room. At home, it is easy to identify using a modern camera.

How to determine KEO?

1. Take a white sheet of large paper, lay it on the floor of the balcony.
2. Set the camera to aperture priority, measure shutter speed on it.
3. Follow the same procedures in the room, facing the window.
4. The ratio of excerpts will be equal to the indicator KEO.

Important! All measurements should take place at noon on a clear, sunny day. Modern technology measures up to ⅓ -⅓ steps.

The coefficient of natural light (KEO) should be:

• for shared rooms, a kitchen, a gym and a pool with side lighting - 0.5;
• for children - 0.7;
• for the office - 1.0;
• for a bathroom, toilet, sauna, hallway and combined bathroom, this parameter is not regulated.

Important! KEO is measured only laterally, in the horizontal plane of the floor. For upper natural lighting, it is not considered at all.

UGR

Another indicator is important - psychological discomfort (UGR). For most rooms, it should be zero.

The discomfort coefficient is calculated according to the formula from the international standard EN 12464-1. It is based on the rigidity of light (in the normative documentation it is called brilliance).

Important! A very bright light can be favorable for vision due to its softness, and a dull hard one can spoil it and irritate it.

The light stiffness is determined by the following three parameters of the light flux: spectrum, coherence, and degrees of polarization. Changes UGR in the range from 0 to 100.

Spectrum

It is quite easy to adapt to the effective color temperature of the eye illumination.

Important! On a clear sunny day, the lighting temperature is 5700 K, on ​​a cloudy day - 6300 K, at sunset it drops to about 2000 K.

Sunlight is warm and smooth, so thermal light sources such as conventional incandescent, xenon, freon, krypton, and halogen lamps are best suited for vision. Unfortunately, all these sources are uneconomical. Therefore, more and more people prefer fluorescent lamps.

Important! Engineers and scientists are constantly working on improving fluorescent lamps. Modern models with a three-layer phosphor are able to give light that is practically not inferior to diffused solar in comfort.

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How to make lighting in the apartment? Standards for the power and number of lamps in the room

One of the most important parameters of a comfortable apartment lighting design is the ratio of power, the number of lighting devices and the illuminated area.

Important! Experts recommend using lighting devices with a total power of 60-75 kW for every 5 square meters.

The optimal number of fixtures can be calculated independently, based on the area of ​​the room. There are also ready-made recommendations on this subject:

• A one-room apartment with an area of ​​30-40 square meters will require no more than 8 lamps. It can be, for example, three ceiling fixtures, two sconces, a table lamp and a floor lamp.
• The optimal set for a two-room apartment is 9 lamps. You can imagine them with such devices: two chandeliers, three ceiling lights, a table lamp, two sconces and a floor lamp.
• A three-room apartment will need about 11 lamps. To the set of devices for a two-room apartment, you can add another sconce and a chandelier.
• For an apartment consisting of four rooms, 13 lamps are needed. The previous set can be supplemented by a table lamp and a ceiling lamp.

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Types of Lighting Lamps

The lighting design in the room can be implemented by any type of modern lamp. Let's consider them in more detail.

Incandescent lamps

As mentioned above, the range of such lamps is the most comfortable for vision. But a significant drawback of the seemingly better lamps is that they spend only 10% of their power on creating light, the rest is converted into thermal energy. Based on this, in a room with a large number of incandescent lamps it is always stuffy and hot.

Fluorescent lamps

These lamps, unlike the previous ones, do not heat up, but until recently they were very reluctant to use for lighting apartments and houses because of:

• uncomfortable bluish-white light;
• not too pleasant buzz of work;
• the need for special starting devices to connect.

Modern energy saving fluorescent tubes devoid of these shortcomings, so they can be used instead of incandescent lamps.

Halogen and metal halide lamps

This type of lamp emits a rather narrow directional beam of light, therefore it is more suitable for lighting certain areas or for highlighting decoration elements: sculptural groups, paintings, columns, niches and more.

LEDs

These bulbs do not heat up, are durable, and do not have ultraviolet and infrared radiation in their spectrum that are harmful to human health. But the luminous efficiency of this lamp does not allow using it as an independent light source. Therefore, most often it is used as a night lamp or for decorative lighting.

Important! The service life of LEDs exceeds 80 times the life of incandescent lamps.

Duralight Light Cords

These cords are decorative light sources based on LEDs. They are used, as a rule, for decoration of interior details or in outdoor street lighting.

Optical fibers

This type of fixtures emits light only from the ends. With their help, you can create simply fantastic lighting effects by using special nozzles, removing them away from the main light source.

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Light design in the apartment

There are two general approaches to the design of room lighting:

• European, which involves the use of a chandelier;
• American, based on an economical and individual concept using sconces.

Important! Both that and other approach allow to receive as a result almost shadowless background lighting. The problem of having a large number of wires is solved by covering the ceiling and walls, under which all the electrical cords are placed. The proper organization of lighting an apartment comes down to room-by-room design.

Natural light:

• Direct natural light passing through glass or reflecting off a mirror can become excessively harsh.
• For the comfort of residents, the light also should not be excessively directed and too sharp.
• To prevent all this, use openwork or translucent barriers (organza, tulle). In this way, the light is scattered and optimization of natural lighting is achieved.
• Vertical fabric blinds can help direct the light to the right place.

Important! There are already so-called “smart” blinds on sale that support the optimal lighting mode of the room automatically.

Artificial lighting. General rules

How to make lighting in the room? To do this correctly, it is useful to know the following points:

• If light and color are consistent across the spectrum, then they give space. For example, backlighting with blue light of red will be, to put it mildly, inappropriate.
• Visually in the direction of the light flux, the planes stretch.
• Too low ceilings are visually able to raise luminaires with upward reflectors. Accordingly - downward shades will shade the ceiling and make the ceiling too high visually lower.
• Rooms with a dark general tone of design should be illuminated by zones, and with a general light tone of design - evenly.
• The general lighting of the room can be somewhat muffled, because its purpose is to ensure comfort and free orientation in the room.
• The light of the working area should be white and brighter.
• Designers recommend highlighting the wall that is behind the TV, or the space behind the computer monitor. This technique will in no way disrupt the screen lighting, but will reduce the level of fatigue and eye strain.
• Zones should be lit evenly.
• Local light for white objects can be colored, but for colored objects - only white.

Important! In any case, allowing deep shadows is undesirable.

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Proper lighting design in the room

The lighting design of the apartment in each room should be carried out separately, since it has its own rules. Consider the main ones regarding the most important rooms in the house.

Living room

Increasingly, designers are abandoning the idea of ​​placing a ceiling chandelier in the center of the living room.In addition, recently this room is often combined with a kitchen, and such a redevelopment requires new solutions:

• In modern living rooms, you can see the perimeter lighting with dotted accents.
• Another fashion trend is the use of shelves and cabinets with lighting.
• Since the living room, as a rule, has a large area, for its high-quality lighting, several diverse light sources are required.

Bedroom Lighting Design:

• In the bedroom, it is recommended to use only one directional light source - a reading lamp.
• The main lighting should be diffused to help relax.
• The use of illumination of different colors will be relevant, you can experiment and place it in the area of ​​the head of the bed. The light must be soft.
• An interesting idea is to use LED window lighting. Tapes can be placed around the perimeter of the window opening so that they illuminate the glass along. From the inside, the window is curtained with organza. Thus, coziness and intimacy of the room are achieved.

Light in the nursery

Especially hard light affects sensitive children's eyes, so it is better to place matte shades on the ceiling or with matte halogen caps.

Kitchen lighting design:

• Particular attention in this room must be given to lighting the cooking area. In this case, it is better to choose lamps that can be directed.
• It is also possible to install a lighting fixture in a furniture panel.
• Accents can be made using lighting in cabinets with transparent doors, where beautiful services are placed.
• Over the dining area, designers have often recently used several ceiling chandeliers at once.

Hallway Light:

• The entrance to the apartment is usually the darkest place in the whole house. For this reason, the entrance hall should have bright lighting. To do this, choose one chandelier for general lighting and several point ones that can be placed above the mirror and near the hanger.
• The lighting of the corridor must be in harmony with the lighting of adjacent rooms.

Important! An interesting idea is the placement in the hallway of lamps according to the type of street lamps, as well as a stretch ceiling with backlight.

Bathroom Lighting Design:

• In the bathroom, you can abandon the general lighting and use only accent - near the mirror and bath.
• Choose indoor shades, as there is always high humidity in the room.
• You can use lamps of both cold and warm colors.

Important! Often in the bathroom specially left twilight.

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Stock footage

From literacy to designing an apartment lighting design depends, in fact, a lot. Having correctly placed the lamps, you can emphasize the beneficial aspects of the interior and ensure the comfort of staying in the house for all family members. Using the useful information from this article, you will avoid serious mistakes when choosing lighting lamps and implementing lighting design.