Low brightness night lighting
How awake or sleepy we feel is regulated by a hormone called melatonin – high levels of melatonin make us feel awake whilst low levels make us relaxed or sleepy. I like to build in low brightness night lighting into my clients’ homes so they can move around them safely at night without unnecessarily being woken up too much. Useful areas for night lighting are routes to bathrooms, the bathrooms themselves and circulation areas such as corridors and halls, stairs and landings. My favourite product for night lighting is the floor washer Square from Cube Lighting:
They are designed to be installed at low-level in walls to create a subtle wash of soft light across floors. I’ve been using them that long that they used to contain a capsule halogen lamp (bulb) but some years ago Cube upgraded them to contain a 2.4W LED light source that I usually specify to provide a warm white light. Along with the frosted fascia glass, this creates a warm glow that it just enough to safely walk around by. The scooped shape inside provides such a good spread of light that you really don’t need to pepper the walls with them – I illuminated one client’s 3m square master bathroom with just one and that on its own easily allows a three o’clock in the morning loo trip.
Like most of Cube’s products they come in a range of finishes and I favour primed for painting so that they can be made to blend into the surroundings. The mark of good architectural lighting is that you should notice what it is lighting and not the light fittings themselves – particularly when night lighting.
