Architectural Lighting Design
We design the hour after sunset.
Candela is a lighting design practice working on landmarks, bridges, museums and public space across fourteen countries.
Position
Candela is an independent lighting design practice working on cathedrals, bridges, museums, concert halls and civic space. We are not a manufacturer and we sell nothing: we specify, model, mock up and commission light on behalf of the people who commission the building.
Light is a material with a cost. Every lumen we specify is energy burned and sky glow added, so the first question on any site is what can stay dark. We design in section before plan, we test at full scale on the real surface before we commit a single fitting, and we come back after handover to re-aim what has moved. We do not decorate buildings with light. We describe them.
Selected schemes
Drawings that became evenings.
How we choose a fitting
Every luminaire has a shape. This is how you read it.
A polar intensity distribution is the first thing a lighting designer looks at, and the last thing anyone else ever sees. Move the controls: the curve is computed, and the cards below are lit by whatever you specify.
Architectural Lighting Design
Full interior and exterior lighting design from concept through to focus, for buildings where the night view is part of the brief.
Facade and Urban Lighting
Exterior schemes for landmarks, bridges and public space, designed against obtrusive light limits from the first sketch rather than defended afterwards.
Daylight and Circadian Strategy
Daylight modelling and tunable white strategy for workplaces, galleries and care environments, tied to measured outcomes rather than marketing claims.
Services
What we actually issue.
Architectural Lighting Design
We work in section and on site rather than from a fitting catalogue, setting illuminance, luminance ratios and colour before any product is named. Every scheme is calculated, mocked up at full scale on the real material, and re-aimed after the building is occupied.
- Lighting plot, sections and schedule
- Photometric calculations in Relux and Dialux evo
- Full-scale mock-up and focus sessions
- Commissioning and aiming report
Facade and Urban Lighting
We establish the environmental zone, upward light ratio and window luminance limits before deciding where a single fitting goes, which is the only way to keep a scheme intact through consent. Night surveys, viewpoint analysis and trial rigs are part of the base service, not an extra.
- Night survey and viewpoint study
- Obtrusive light assessment to ILP and CIE 150
- Trial rig and viewpoint photography
- Curfew and seasonal control regime
Daylight and Circadian Strategy
We model climate-based daylight availability first and design electric light to complete it, which usually means less installed load and fewer control zones than expected. Where a circadian case is made we set it against melanopic EDI targets at the eye and verify it on site.
- Climate-based daylight modelling
- Melanopic EDI targets at eye position
- Tunable white curve and zoning strategy
- Post-occupancy measurement report
Controls, Programming and Commissioning
Most schemes that disappoint were designed well and commissioned badly, so we treat the control layer as a design output with its own drawings and its own sign-off. We write the scene list, program it on site at night, and hand over documentation the operator can actually use.
- Control topology and zoning drawings
- Scene list and fade time schedule
- On-site programming and witness testing
- Operator handbook and re-lamp schedule
Lighting Masterplans and Heritage Consent
A masterplan that cannot be enforced is a picture book, so ours are written as testable standards with hierarchy, colour palette, maximum levels and fixing rules for every asset class. On listed fabric we prepare the consent package and attend the committee ourselves.
- Hierarchy, colour and level standards
- Fixing and reversibility strategy for listed fabric
- Heritage impact statement and consent pack
- Phasing plan and capital cost bands
Method
Brief to commissioning.
Brief and Night Survey
We walk the site after dark before we draw anything, with a meter and a camera. Existing levels, spill from neighbours, sightlines, the surfaces that actually take light and the ones that will never work are all recorded. The brief that comes out of that walk is usually not the brief we were given.
Concept and First Test
Concept is set in section and in reference imagery, never in a fitting schedule. Within weeks we put a trial rig on the real material at the real distance, because a limestone sample under a desk lamp tells you nothing about a facade at thirty metres on a wet night.
Developed Design
Calculations, luminance studies and coordination with structure, acoustics and services. Every position is resolved against how it will be reached for maintenance, and every heritage fixing against how it will be removed. This is where the scheme either becomes buildable or quietly stops being affordable.
Technical Design and Tender
Full plot, schedule, control topology and specification issued for tender, with performance written so that alternatives can be judged rather than simply refused. We review every submitted equivalent against measured photometry, not against a marketing sheet, and we say no in writing when it is warranted.
Focus and Commissioning
We aim every fitting ourselves, at night, on ladders and in cherry pickers. Scenes are programmed on site with the operator present, witness tested, and recorded in an aiming report. We return within twelve months to re-aim what has drifted and to measure what was promised.
Clients
They argued us out of the scheme we asked for and into a better one. Connected load on the quarter fell by two thirds, and the residents survey the following spring recorded the lanes as brighter than before.Leyla RustamovaDirector, Heritage Quarter, Shirvanabad Municipality
The broadcast banding that had cost us two recording sessions was gone after commissioning, and the twelve second house fade is exactly what the orchestra remembered from before the conversion. They measured everything and assumed nothing.Esteban IriarteTechnical Director, Nueva Alcira Music Foundation
Our conservator set a 50 lux limit expecting a fight. Instead we got an annual exposure budget, a spectrum tested against our own textiles, and galleries our curators can re-scene themselves between rotations.Priya NaickerHead of Collections, Rondekloof Museum of Decorative Arts
Journal
Notes from the site and the software.
What Happens Between the Plot and the Installed Job
Six recurring failures that turn a correct lighting drawing into a disappointing building, and the clauses that catch them.
July 27, 2026 · 2 minUGR on Site Against UGR in the Model
A year of paired measurements on completed workplaces suggests the modelled glare figure is often optimistic, and predictably so.
July 27, 2026 · 2 minWhy 2700K Is Not Automatically Warm
Correlated colour temperature describes a source in isolation, and almost nothing about how a room will feel once the light lands on something.
July 27, 2026 · 2 minDark-Sky Obligations Are a Brief, Not a Restriction
The projects where an obtrusive light limit arrived early are consistently better looking than the ones where it arrived at planning stage.
Next
Bring us in early.
The cheapest lighting decisions are the ones made while the drawings are still soft. Tell us what you are building.