ambient lighting

Ambient lighting refers to the general illumination of a room or space. Modern concepts of ambient (general) lighting are different from more traditional ones.

Traditional ambient lighting design

Traditional ambient lighting rely on uniformly illuminated rooms, involving one or a relatively small number of light fixtures and reduced or null number of task lighting or accent lighting points... That is: a single, large overhead fixture is often the only source of general lighting and the only source of the illumination of the room.

Ceiling Pendant In small rooms with good day-lighting this design can still be a good solution, but not in other cases.

Modern ambient lighting design

Modern ambient lighting is often an indirect back-lighting system. It sets the backdrop for more specific types of lighting – the task and the accent lighting.

In other words, modern lighting designs combine ambient (general) lighting with task (and accent) lighting; they are task-ambient-accent lighting systems, with the ambient lighting part providing relatively small levels of illumination to the whole room, sometimes in an indirect way.

In this approach, lighting fixtures are largely concentrated over work areas.

Indirect and wall-washing ambient lighting

Modern ambient lighting can be based on indirect lighting, that is, on a lighting system that uses the walls, floor or ceiling to reflect the light associated with hidden and encased lights.

It may also use low-wattage lights located on the floor or ceiling at regular intervals, focused to the walls, to improve the quality of the illumination, by making it more even and more glare-free and cozier.

Efficiency and energy costs

Traditional general lighting is still largely used, partly because of the common misconception that the modern task-ambient lighting design is more expensive or difficult to implement.

However, modern lighting equipment can make the implementation of the new designs an easy task, without demanding significant extra costs.