Light and Shadow

While light is an omnipresent energy source humans deeply rely upon, it is also illusive. We cannot perceive light's electromagnetic waves, yet they illuminate matter, give form to the space around us and allow us to read our surroundings. It is the meeting of light and matter, and the subsequent shadows, that creates landscapes we can navigate, engage with and inhabit comfortably. In this way, at The Soft Minimal, every lamp we design is made to be a canvas for light, and so we believe that without light, a home becomes an expressionless canvas. Through spatial orientation, volumes, openings, closures and surfaces, every lamp The Soft Minimal designs gives light the matter it needs to be expressive.

If we remember light's essential role in human well-being, we can design atmospheric spaces that please body and mind. To this end, it is vital to embrace the ephemeral nature of light, appreciate the endless ambiances available and understand that no other architectural medium has the capacity to evoke such a vast spectrum of emotions: from bliss to sorrow, optimism to repose.

The architect and designer channel light to affect certain emotional and physical states through a process that often draws on embodied knowledge, animal instincts and imagination, just as much as technical skill. We are all moved by sunrise, twilight and sunset, not just because they offer poetic color spectrums and long shadows, but because the evolutionary process has attuned the human eye to soft rather than bright light. We see better with softer light conditions, and we, therefore, find softly lit spaces more comfortable to reside in. Modern society, however, has gone against these instincts with excessively, uniformly lit interiors and luminescent city streets that ignore the human preference for a nuanced experience of brightness and darkness. Our systems become deprived of natural daylight and at night, are overwhelmed by artificial light. The Modernist ethos largely dismisses our craving for a sense of place, intimacy and security that are afforded by a more natural and less glaring atmosphere. Paradoxically, this modern ocularcentrism and obsession with light have left us with impaired vision and a reduced sense of well-being. Thus, an important task of our lamp design is to return essence and sensation to the innate needs of the human organism and find a nourishing, and practical, balance of light and dark: spaces with enough illumination delivered at the right times; with shadows to retreat to and temperate tones that are easy on the eye; and with volumes, which is why we design lamps in natural materials such as stone, so that we can manage surface planes that reflect or absorb light at a beautiful frequency.

Our task in designing artificial light requires a contextual and cultural approach. Natural light is a dynamic force that expresses itself differently in any given place, at any given moment. To work with natural light is to work with time and to welcome the minute shifts occurring constantly throughout the day, so that we can design lamps that come as close to natural light as possible. From what we have studied, in the far north, where warmth and light are scarcer, architects often choose to amplify the sun's subtle deliveries. In the south, conversely, a more selective approach invites filtered sunlight inside during mornings and evenings and avoids the harshness of midday. The alchemy lies in balancing these natural light patterns throughout the entire architectural realm with a considered application of artificial lighting. The approach to the latter is reserved for the creation of atmosphere, depth and sub-spaces. The starting point is often darkness, and the design process cautiously brightens, stopping well before the senses are overburdened. Once again, the embodied knowledge of The Soft Minimal guides the designer towards lighting that embraces human physiology, giving it an emotionally charged variety of rooms, nooks and corners to dwell in.

The light we design is primarily understood as an optic phenomenon. Yet when light is mediated by matter, filtering through textile, gliding across glass, vibrating off metal or soaking through stone, it manifests a tactility we can touch with our eyes. When a certain quality of light meets a certain kind of surface, it conceives a unique substance. Greeting our lamps exclusively with our gaze, we can feel the substance as either solid or fluid, hard or soft, wet or dry, strong or fragile. A plethora of emotional responses derive from this instantaneous and often subconscious reading of our tactile surroundings. We may feel safe within a solid brick room or calmed by a soft woolen couch. The designers at The Soft Minimal, who understand the relationship between light and surface, can create resonant spaces and furniture that touch our minds.

Just as we need light to live, we also seek the quiet shelter of darkness. Shadows are an overlooked aspect of spatial design, yet their murky realms provide the necessary conditions to awaken deep psychological states. In shadowy spaces, vision finally takes a back seat. Touch, hearing and smell gain heightened sensitivity and our subconscious, unburdened by excessive visual stimuli, can roam. If we reside in a place that obscures itself from our view, we experience a touch of mystery that beckons curiosity and imagination. Physically, a corner dimly lit by a lamp envelops our body and secludes us from the world, encouraging a safe and private mindset. The quiet atmosphere sends us inward to contemplate complex, painful, profound and creative thoughts. If spaces are designed with equal respect for shadows and light, we can offer a full human experience: a connection to internal and external environments and hopefully, a harmony between them.