LIGHTING RETAIL DESIGN HANDBOOK

LIGHTING RETAIL DESIGN HANDBOOK

Design tools between space, time and light

By Federica Sandretti

ABSTRACT

The Lighting Design Handbook is a research process applied to artificial light for retail spaces. 

Through my professional experience in stores, stands, corners and general sales points design, the light had become a fundamental element in the project to achieve a successful space  and a great experience for the customer. 

In my professional carrier I found a lack of knowledge between architecture and lighting project, which always led directly to the defeat of interior space project and product display. 

As an architect I need to understand this world, to explore it through a transversal reading guide which will allow me to find answers to many questions. I’m sure that if architects spend some time to understand the lighting discipline, they would understand why it is so important to work together to a lighting designer, as they learned that for structures it’s needed an engineer! 

Therefore this paper doesn’t pretend to be a lighting manual, which is very complex and many experts have already made, but it looks for investigate a design tools between retail and lighting, to get rid of strange customs related to lack of knowledge and to conceive a complete spatial and lighting project. 

In my experience as a retail designer I met with different pathologies when light meets space: from the widespread misinformation to the commercial brand manipulation, from false concepts of savings unhealthy lighting solutions, to the typical clash that often occurs between the geometrical formalization of space and lighting. 

The great challenge of lighting for retail space has to do with its enormous potential in this field. 

Actually the consumer society and his spatial “temples” have become key in our daily life, fulfilling our wishes and declaring our personality.

The religion of the sale, has become complex and faceted, fueled by marketing strategies and increasingly tied to the psychology of the buyer, the product has been replaced by the concept of selling experience in the brand space.

The formalization of spatial representation has been the idea of concept store, a place where marketing, interior design, lighting, signage, circulation, display and visual communication work together. 

Have been developed a new family of places or "non-places"  as concept shops, flagships, pop-up stores, boutiques and specialized shops and especially the mini-city of shopping, the big malls, a phenomenon almost leader in the shopping experience and leaded by a strong control of the space strategy.

All these places have very complex needs related to lighting. 

Is not only about a properly illumination of the products, it’s also about understanding their possible solutions display, materials, colors, and form of storage, improving the customer and the shopping experience and managing efficiency, consumption, maintenance and lighting control. 

The Lighting Design Handbook proposes to reinterpret the basics of lighting techniques and design techniques and create a new design tool through three categories that bring together the elements of space, time and light. 

This process looks at three groups of elements: punctual, linear and spatial that corresponds to specific tasks in retail space behaviors. 

By reinterpreting the project through these conceptual groups, we obtain at the same time information about the type of spatial element, his use during the time and the type of lighting that would correspond more. 

Is not intended to reduce any space or lighting concept to any schemes or rules, because we know that light has to do partly with technical and physical appearance, but most of its influence on perception. 

But is intended to build a proper place in between lighting and space design where be aware of the basic rules and start to consciously create healthy and enjoyable illuminated spaces.