We All Age In Place

A winter view from the shore of one of the lakes near Madison, WI.

I made plans to write on this topic months before the world changed underneath us. Back then, Living in Place was an emerging term that encapsulated a myriad of design ideas intended to help us live better lives without having to change locations. Comfort, accessibility, safety, and wellness all fit within the term. Age in […]

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A Better Life with Light

The cover of Technology Design magazine with an extravagant back deck of a large modern house complete with pool. Lit up at dusk.

Technology Designer magazine has the best coverstock of any magazine that has ever published my writing…and the attention to detail doesn’t stop there. The graphic design is clean and modern and the whole magazine is as luxurious as the projects inside. Okay, enough of a plug for the magazine!  If you want to decide if […]

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Vegas: City of Light (seeing) 2

An expensive hotel room with a large living area separated from the sleeping area by a wrought iron railing. There are many lamps all turned on lighting up the room.

Awhile back I posted a Lightseeing piece when I attended a conference at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Sometimes conferences take places at hotels that have pretty scruffy rooms. This was not one of those conferences. Every room at the Venetian is a suite; the one above was mine. I counted over twenty light sources […]

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Vegas: City of Light (seeing)

Vegas hotels lit up at night

Las Vegas is not the city of light, it is the city of lighting. Electric lighting. Lots and lots of electric lighting. And since Vegas is all about nightlife and casinos-without-windows, it is impossible to see anything in Las Vegas without Lightseeing. I was there with the team a few weeks ago for a conference, […]

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We’re on a Mission

Two people walking on a path through barren woods on a sunny day

Note: I began this post in a different world, a pre-coronavirus world.  Now, as many more of us are sheltering in place, light at home is more critical than ever.  Now, as many of us face illness, the benefits of light for wellness are more important than ever.  We’re still on a mission to help. […]

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Lightseeing Blues

A building side covered with windows of various sizes and several patches of lights

This series of posts may lead you to believe that I am always looking at lighting and that would be a false impression.  I also look at billboards for injury attorneys, the back of the airplane seat in front of me, the speedometer, the GPS.  I usually do not set out intentionally to look at […]

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Human Centric Lighting…or Profit Centric Lighting?

A seagull flies above an ice covered lake at sunrise near Madison, WI

Human Centric Lighting (HCL) is a nebulous term quickly replacing Circadian Lighting as the go-to language for describing lighting strategies intended to improve our lives. The more expansive idea behind HCL is that it includes circadian rhythm science but also accounts for moment-to-moment human wellness, comfort, and needs. Human Centric Lighting sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Recently […]

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Lightseeing 2

Ceiling lights that are large recessed squares covering the whole ceiling area

We take light for granted: we assume it will be bright enough to see whenever we want it so, even in the middle of the night. We assume entrances will be lit, lobbies will be illuminated, restaurants will glow. Sometimes, despite being taken for granted, we notice something that catches our eye. I call this […]

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Red Light, Green Light

A creek filled with mossy rocks surrounded by ferns and other green leafy plants, shaded by trees with spots of sunlight poking through

A few years ago I heard a simple phrase from a leading lighting researcher: “Light is a drug.” Like most drugs, light causes chemical reactions in our brain and body.  Moods change, biorhythms change, migraines disappear. Wait, migraines? Dr. Mohab Ibrahim, director of the chronic pain clinic at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, has an […]

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Light Can Help You