Vilas’ colleague Jaspreet Chandhok joins the discussion: “I trained as an architect, and right from my first year in college I loved researching into lighting design, and when we started integrating daylight and climatology in my second year, I knew that this was the field for me. I designed all my architectural assignments integrating light as a design element.”

What exactly is your role now?

Vilas: “We design lighting solutions. For us, it’s about getting the basics right. Our job is to enhance or bring out the architect’s and client’s joint vision.”

What would be your ideal project?

Vilas: “A car showroom. For me buying a car should be a bit like going to buy jewellery. In a jewellery shop you are made to feel special, as if the product has been made for you. You may feel differently once you get home, but whilst you are in the shop it seems like you deserve it. I think you should get the same feeling when you buy a car; a sense of belonging or ownership.”

What difference would you make with your lighting design?

Jaspreet: “Conventional showrooms have basic functional lighting, sometimes with punctuation of the aesthetics, so you see the entire store and you see the car. We would like the customer’s attention to be drawn to the car, because it is the car that is meant to take their breath away, not the showroom. People principally buy with their eyes… so it makes sense to accentuate the product on sale.”

If you are lighting a building in India, how do you generally do this?

Vilas: “For façade lighting, for example, we may create a design-based lighting solution, but the client might want floodlighting. Something subtle would not usually be considered. The client often doesn’t just want individual features to be highlighted, he wants everything to be lit brightly, more brightly than the neighbouring property. In India, until very recently, lighting for a building façade generally meant floodlighting.

Tell me about some of the projects you’ve done and how you use light to create emotion.

Vilas: “The first one that comes to mind is the one we did in Hyderabad, where we had something like four or five areas of water. We lit each one differently, so that each triggers a different emotion.”

Jaspreet: “The first thing we did was to establish a creative approach, moving away from the conventional and predictable. We wanted to create something fresh, like a painting, so that when you look at it you engage with it fully and temporarily forget everything else.”

Vilas: “In one we created the effect of moltenlava, and another was based on a concept offloating lamps, derived from the scenes at the banks of the holy river Ganges. Most of these things are psychological. I know that if I like something, I can be sure that a major percentage of Indians will like it too, because we share a similar cultural background. If I were to do this project in some other country I would have to consider carefully whether it is appropriate for that particular culture.”

What is the general taste in lighting in India?

Jaspreet: “Here in India we are used to having intense daylight, and yet when we go indoors wet end to have a lower lighting level than people in most European countries, where they are used to a lower level of daylight outside. This probably also varies from one region to another, depending on what people can afford.”

Do you think we use too much bright light in India?

Jaspreet: “For example, up to about a decade ago, a lot of homes in India had a refrigerator in the living room instead of the kitchen. It was a status symbol then. Similarly, some clients are of the opinion that if you are designing the lighting for a space, it is something that you need to show off with high levels of illuminance or colours. In our work we like to create lighting effects but we don’t want the lighting to be too pronounced.”

What kind of lighting do you have in your own office?

Jaspreet: “One thing we were very clear about when we designed our own office was that we wanted a lot of daylight, not only for reasons of energy efficiency but because there is nothing nicer and more dynamic than daylight. Nothing makes you feel so active as when you feel you are connected to the world outside.“Eight hours of the time you spend at home is spent sleeping, so work is where you spend most of your waking hours. That’s why this environment should make you feel good, it should help to reduce stress levels. I am not saying that good lighting alone can prevent stresscompletely, but it can help reduce fatigue. Youneed a pleasant environment, and if lighting can be used to create the right ambience this will boost efficiency and motivation.”

Do you prefer to use specific colours for certain effects or situations?

Vilas: “I like an intermediate lighting level of 4200 K. I would think carefully before using a coloured lamp indoors, but if I am using colour outside I like to use aqua blue and sunset shades.”

Why aqua blue? What does it represent for you?

Vilas: “I find it soothing, it’s very easy on the eye.”

Do you associate it with anything specific?

Jaspreet: “It is a shade from the evening sky.We prefer the lighting not to be showy, although we do like the effect to stand out with a natural feel to it so it arouses curiosity about where the effect is coming from. Aqua blue or sunset red, when used sparingly, can give a reassuring touch to the illuminated environment.”

What effect do you want your lighting design to have… calming, exciting…?

Jaspreet: “As lighting designers, we work with a pallet of shadow and light. Whenever you design with light, you also work with shadow or darkness – that’s how you make a flat effect into 3D and vice versa.”

Vilas: “If we choose only one colour, then we can use different degrees of contrast to vary the design from calming to exciting, depending on the use of space.”

What kind of techniques do you usefor dynamic lighting?

Jaspreet: “Most of the time we would recommend a smooth wash with subtle colours. There’s lighting and there’s luminance, like a traffic signal, where the source itself is lit. Flashing lights are often inappropriate because the light then overpowers and dominates the architecture.In the majority of applications we prefer to re-create a surface, depth or gradient by proposing reflected colour change.

Vilas: “If there has to be a change in light in an interior environment, it should be gradual like it is in nature and should be programmed in accordance with daylight. Colour changing attracts attention, it intrigues. Someone may see a blue light and after a while they may notice that the colour has changed. Colour changing therefore holds people’s attention and creates a sense of anticipation about what’s coming next.”

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Vilas: “The environment itself and creative architectural spaces are always inspiring. But also when I see a lighting job done shabbily, I immediately think of the simple things that could have been done a better way. I remember this so that when a project comes along and I have limited time and budget, I have the information stored away in my head and ready to use.”

What is the first thing you play with, intensity perhaps?

Jaspreet: “It is probably the desired mood – that is the starting point for a project. The application techniques, like intensity, are amongst the tools we use.”

… mood or ?

Vilas: “Mood or ambience and its intended impact on the users, it all starts from there.”