NATURE-CENTRIC DESIGN

Jul 1, 2023

Two years ago, we started talking about a new awareness growing in the lighting design industry, driven by a project we have been entrusted with in an environmentally sensitive area: the nature-centric design. A year later, in June 2022, we brought this topic to the annual congress of AIDI (Italian Association of Lighting), reinforcing what has become a core value for our practice and an auspice for colleagues and industry as a whole.

We kept discussing on design criteria and parameters composing this new paradigm in lighting design at the Darc Sessions in Mykonos where Zoì Katsarou gave a keynote speech to an international audience of lighting designers and manufacturers.

In May, earlier this year, the topic was again discussed by Marinella Patetta joined with Patricia Viel’s voice from ACPV Architects. A virtuous collaboration between lighting designer and architect was presented in a conference organised by CultLab in Turin, Italy showing how this relation can promote important innovations, setting a new horizon and vision for future design practices. The entire intervention has been published on YouTube.

Also in the APIL (Italian Lighting Designers Association) gathering more and more attention was addressed to lighting designers and architects aiming at enhancing the importance of sustainability above mere figures as implied by existing regulations so far. What we believe is that sustainability can and should turn into a value for the project itself and more extensively for our future.

The project that ignited these considerations among our team continues its course towards realization. Still, this was only the sparkle from which we started and realized that our growing awareness can be put at service on all the projects, including those that don’t present prioritised environmental parameters and concerns. It is our duty as lighting designers to point out the positive environmental and aesthetic impact that a nature-centric design can have on any intervention.

As we point out in all our interventions, we are not alone: animal species and the sky itself is a common heritage and we have to work responsibly for protecting them as much as we can.

CultLab