Lighting design & object design

Understanding the atmosphere of a place - its architecture, the way it is used, the way night redraws it: the lighting concept grows out of that close reading. Then finding the right intensity, the one that reveals a material, hollows out a shadow and leaves the night sky the share that belongs to it. From the illumination of a monument to the drawing of a bespoke luminaire, we carry the project from sketch to prototype, reconciling feeling and use: visual comfort, aesthetics and the maintenance to come.

References

Lighting master plan

A lighting master plan gives a city the night-time writing it lacks: a single intention, in which every district, every route and every square receives its due share of light and darkness. It ranks the streets and spaces to be treated, sets the range of luminaires, the colour temperatures and the lighting levels, then maps out the long-term development of the lighting stock, with an eye on the existing colour environment as much as on the constraints of operation and maintenance.

Projects

Night-time strategy

Lighting a city means first deciding what is left to the night - where light is necessary, where it is superfluous, where it costs more than it brings. An inventory of the stock, photometric surveys, an analysis of energy and maintenance spending: the survey always comes before the strategy. Actions are then ranked by priority - regulatory, safety, energy savings, added value - and we stay with the client to the end: writing the brief and the tender documents, weighing direct management against delegation and performance contracts, then comparing the bids on technical merit and whole-life cost.

Projects

About

Founded in 2003 and based in the Loire valley, Noctabene is an independent lighting design practice. Its multidisciplinary teams - lighting designers, lighting engineers, product designers - work on urban lighting, heritage illumination, public lighting audits and surveys, events and the design of luminous objects, always weaving the technical together with the artistic. The practice is led by Christophe Canadell, lighting designer and founder, and Alexis Lippens, operations director.

Whether the project is urban or commercial, indoors or out, permanent or temporary, we design bespoke installations - original, restrained and efficient - and see to their technical delivery and site supervision alike, under study contracts or as project managers. The cities of Nancy, Nouméa and Saint-Nazaire have entrusted us with their public lighting; others with the illumination of landmarks such as the Assemblée Nationale in Paris or the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Noctabene works throughout France and internationally, and is a member of the Association des Concepteurs Éclairagistes and of the Association Française de l’Éclairage.