Lighting Design and Controls for your Luxury Space

Light with Purpose, Not Patterns

Great design demands great lighting—light that’s targeted, layered, and natural. Workspaces, reading nooks, art walls, and architectural features should be thoughtfully illuminated to emphasize their purpose and beauty.  The standard “four cans and a fan” school of lighting layout often fails to deliver light where it’s needed most.  This layout tends to light up walkways or empty spaces while areas you work are inadequetly illuminated.  For example, most kitchens have a row of lights between the island and the range and another on the far side of the island.  While this is a great setup for showing the dirt on your floors, it will cast shadows on your cutting surface since the light source is behind you.  To state the obvious: this is far from ideal.

Thoughtful lighting design considers a room’s purpose, frequency of use, and key design elements that deserve emphasis.  This cannot be accomplished on a walkthrough with the electrician on the day of wiring.  Stakeholder input, millwork plans, furniture layout, and budget discussions are necessary components of a great design.  Great lighting is part of our company DNA, and we have been at the forefront of bringing new technologies and thoughtful design to our projects for many years.

Below, check out the same room, one with lighting “layout”, and one with lighting “design”:

The Dimmer Dilemma

The Many Colors of White

• Warm-dim fixtures, sometimes referred to as dim-to-warm: These fixtures are only a slight upgrade from static color temperature lights, and they output differing color temperatures depending on whether the dimmer is fully on, or dimmed down.  When fully on, warm-dim fixtures are typically 3000K, or just below full daylight, and when dimmed down, they can output a very warm, amber hue of 1800K
• Tunable white fixtures: these fixtures require a lighting control system such as Homeworks QSX, and intensity and color temperature can be controlled separately, which is a notable upgrade from warm-dim options.  Examples of this type of fixture are Ketra Rania and Lutron Lumaris
• Full color fixtures: These are the top of the line options, and not only can they deliver the entire range of white light, from 1400K to 10,000K, but the entire color spectrum for parties or light therapy.  Ketra D2, D3, and other form factors are feature this capability.

How do I choose between fixtures?

So you’ve decided you want warm-dim, tunable white, or full color fixtures.  How do you go about choosing the right one for your project?  We can help guide the process, but you should always be able to independently verify that what we tell you is empirically true.  Here are some important specs to consider for your recessed lighting needs:

• CRI – this is a “general” indicator of quality.  Color Rendering Index is a measure of the accuracy a light source renders colors compared to a reference light source, on a scale of 0-100.  Poor CRI is <90, decent is around 90, and excellent is 93+.
• R9 – this is the “expanded” indicator of quality that CRI alone may not fully capture.  An excellent R9 score indicates enhanced color accuracy for Reds, which ensures skin tones, artwork and food like meats or produce are reproduced with vibrancy and appear true-to-life.  It is possible that a high-CRI light can have a poor R9 score, and those are the fixtures you should stay away from.  If a company does not publish a fixture’s R9 data, that’s a red flag indicating the quality may not be as good as it needs to be.
• Brightness – measured in Lumens, brightness is a critical measure of a light source.  The brighter a fixture, the greater the power of the fixture to illuminate a space.  If you have very tall ceilings, you’ll need a very bright fixture.  Keep in mind that a fixture with double the brightness requires half as many fixtures to light up the same space, so even though the brighter fixture may cost more, it may end up being the better value.  There is a lot more to this specification than meets the eye and manufacturers will routinely try to game the spec sheet, but look for “delivered” lumens which takes into account the optical path and is a better indicator of brightness than “total” lumens, meaning lumens measured at the light source.
• Beam Angle – Premium light fixtures and even Ketra bulbs are available in a variety of beam angles, which indicates how the light is focused.  A tighter beam angle is preferable for delivering more light from higher ceilings, or focusing it on a piece of artwork.  Wider angles can cover more of the room from lower ceilings if general lighting is all that is needed.

These are the basic specifications you should check, but know there are many other features that inform our decision whether or not to recommend a particular fixture, such as method of control, dimming performance, lens options, and manufacturer warranty.

Stop Outsourcing the Experience

• Lighting Showrooms – while great for seeing a variety of decorative fixtures in person, they often deliver “free” lighting layouts if you buy fixtures from them, but you will get a quickly thrown-together layout, not a real design.  And because their job is finished once fixtures are delivered to the jobsite, you won’t receive near the care and attention you need when you are building a custom home.  Some are starting to offer controls, but usually not the most capable systems, and your project will not command personal attention or ongoing support.
• Electricians – while most are skilled tradespeople, electricians do not have access to the best control systems such as Lutron Homeworks, nor a variety of quality light fixtures.  They also are more likely than not to quickly walk through a house to lay out your lighting rather than taking the time to thoughtfully design a great lighting system.
• Lighting Designers – you may think you need a lighting designer for your luxury home build, but in reality a firm that has both high-end design and practical installation experience is better suited to give you the best guidance on your project.  The most intriguing aspect of using a lighting designer is that they appear to be manufacturer-agnostic since they don’t make money selling you a particular brand of fixture, but truthfully there can still be some financial incentives for them behind the curtain.
• As a designer or builder, why should you consider NOT selling architectural fixtures directly?  Technology moves fast, and if it’s not your main business, why get involved?  There’s more financial incentive in selling decorative fixtures, and most systems integration firms are happy to partner with you and give you all of that part of the lighting budget.  Moreover, you simply cannot sell the best fixtures without also pairing them with the best controls, which are not available to your channel.

What Sets KINETIQ Apart

• We collaborate early to design a lighting plan that supports your architectural and interior vision.
• We eliminate wall clutter by implementing clean, modern control interfaces.
• All lighting programming is done in-house—no outsourcing, no guesswork.
• We offer hands-on support after installation and help ensure the system grows with the home.
• Most importantly, we integrate lighting into the full smart home ecosystem—from voice control to automation and beyond.

Contact us today for a consultation on your next project!