Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the interior design business. My name is Geoff Hayward and you join me in front of a live audience of designers at the Design Club in the Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, London.
We're here tonight to talk lighting. Now, lighting has evolved from a functional necessity into one of the most expressive tools in the interior designer's palette.
With intelligent fixtures, light can now shift in color, temperature and intensity throughout the day, warming mornings, energizing afternoons and creating cinematic evenings all tuned to exactly how we live.
It can transform art, sculpture and materials within the home, add layers, add drama, and quietly shape mood, emotion and experience.
So how are interior designers and lighting specialists working together to use light and shade in new and exciting ways? How can we see these ideas in action at Wowhouse 2026? And what is the likely impact of these creative design sensitive collaborations on the future of luxury residential design?
Welcome to the interior design business.
What a well informed and super cool panel we have for this discussion tonight. Wow house designer Samantha Bartlett from Samantha Bartlett Interiors.
We have Luke Thomas from John Cullen Lighting. And we have James Ratcliffe from Homeplay and Sean Gums from lutron. So terrific panel. Let's give them a round of applause.
And now I'm going to stop talking and say, can you please give us a brief introduction into who you are and your business?
Samantha.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Okay. I'm Samantha Bartlett, founder of Samantha Bartlett Interiors. We're a high end residential interior practice based in London, but work globally and yeah, we just do high end resi for private clients.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: Luke.
[00:02:15] Speaker D: My name's Luke Thomas. I'm design director at John Cullen Lighting. We are specialists in lighting design.
We also have a supply side of our business as well.
I've been with the team for about 18 years and about 10 of those years I've been leading the design team there.
But it's really amazing to be working with Samantha and the team at wowhouse this year.
[00:02:39] Speaker E: And my name's James. I'm from a company called Homeplay. We've been doing technology for luxury homes for 20 years now. It's our 20th anniversary and I got into this selling speakers. But now lighting has become a massive part of our business and I'm excited to be here as well.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Sean.
[00:02:59] Speaker E: I'm Sean from Lutron.
[00:03:01] Speaker F: We've been in lighting control since the 1960s.
We focus on artificial light and the natural light involving shades and obviously controls.
I personally look after integrators like James from Homeflake and I work closely with
[00:03:20] Speaker D: interior designers and architects.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Fantastic. Now we're going to talk lighting and the first Question, really? Probably one for you, Luke.
Lighting is clearly now more than simple illumination.
How do we, or should we think about lighting today?
[00:03:36] Speaker D: I think there's a growing consciousness probably, with regards to lighting and the fact that it's not something that you just pass over to the architect or the electrician. It's a specialist subject.
It does need proper consideration.
One of the reasons why it's a specialist field is the fact that it's a blend between aesthetics, where you're working with the interior designer to deliver their vision, but there's also technical elements as well. You're talking about lumens and watts and efficacies and all of these things. And obviously you have to integrate that into the physical building as well.
So we're trying to really break away from just a standard lighting approach, where the electrician may do just a grid of downlights on the ceiling, to a properly considered and unified solution, which is.
Which is doing wonders for the space and affecting how you actually feel within those environments as well.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Excellent. And as an interior designer, Samantha, do you feel that you're. You're changing how you think about lighting?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Oh, definitely. I think it has been standard grid formations on the RCPs, and now it's actually using less lights and just using them well. So I think, although, you know, the specs might be higher value, they're actually.
We use less of them and you get more output from it. So.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah, and it really is changing. I mean, you've been in the industry, what, 20 years, did you say, James?
[00:05:05] Speaker E: Well, I had home over 20 years, but I've been in it for 30.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: What are you seeing with lighting and how important that is in luxury residential these days?
[00:05:14] Speaker E: Well, for us, we kind of got into it by accident. Most of my career actually happened by accident. But the. But the lighting part, we built a beautiful showroom about eight years ago, and I figured we should put some lighting in it, and we did a great job of it. And people came in and said, hey, your lighting's great. Who did it?
And I would sort of embarrassably say, well, I did. And they say, well, could you do it for us? So I said, I guess I could.
And now that's really become our main business. Now.
What was the question again?
[00:05:51] Speaker A: The question was less about that and more. How has it changed over the years?
[00:05:55] Speaker E: Oh, has it changed? Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, I think we. Back in the day, it used to just be a grid of downlights and a pendant in the middle of the room, maybe some wall lights. But lighting now is a technology product. It's not just a halogen lamp and a rotary dimmer. There's drivers and linear tape, and there's a lot of complexity and a lot of planning that needs going into it. Dimming LEDs is difficult and complicated, and there's lots of different ways of dimming LEDs. And interior designers aren't always comfortable working with that sort of level of technical stuff. And integrators like us sit really well in a good position because we understand all of that nerdy stuff and we make it easy and make all the pain go away.
So that's really, I think the main change is that it's now really a technology product rather than just something that you buy from the electrical wholesaler.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: And you probably agree with that, Sean. I mean, for many years, decorative and architectural lighting were quite distinct separate identities. But everything is now really together, isn't it?
[00:07:02] Speaker F: Yeah, I guess to kind of back James on this one, it has changed in regards to the use of it.
I think for me personally, one of the changes that I see is more the educational piece.
Historically, people are used to devote to redimmers, and naturally people want to stick with what they know. But as times change and homes change, that way of controlling light doesn't really work anymore. And I think that's really one of the biggest hurdles that people come across is, well, why do I need to have a control system? Well, how you can control the space, how many Road Jubilee dimmers are you going to need in order to do that? And which ones are you going to press to be able to control it? And when you break it down and simplify it in that way, that's when people start to care. So I think that's one of the big changes that I've seen.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Do you think it's become more complex,
[00:07:58] Speaker D: Luke, lighting in general or controls?
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah, lighting definitely.
[00:08:05] Speaker D: And this is. If you go back to when I started in the industry, we were still working with halogen and tungsten, and you knew the brightness of a light source based on its energy consumption. So you knew 100 watt is going to be brighter than the 60 watt. Now, that's not the case. Energy consumption doesn't equal light output. You have different efficacies and you also have drivers and you have wattage and you have lumens and color temperatures and color rendering and all of these other things. And it's actually made our job more critical because you can't just turn up and say, do that, do this. You need to know what you're doing. Otherwise you can get it really wrong. And if you get lighting wrong, it can completely destroy a space and it really affects how the mood is and how you experience that area.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: So from your perspective, Samantha, as an interior designer, all this technical stuff that the guys have just been talking about, what do you take from that, that you need to know when you're designing a space?
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Well, I think we've actually informed all that because we do the design, we're pushing the boundaries of design and that's in turn push the boundaries of lighting and demands from it. No client wants a cookie cutter. We all want bespoke. They're paying for a bespoke design service. So we need to be on our game. And with that, we need their specialists to help us. So I a firm believer, stay in your lane, contractors. Stay in your con, you know, your lane. Don't take joinery packages. And interior designers do interior design. And again, lighting designers, kitchen designers, they all have and bring so much to a project.
[00:09:44] Speaker D: There's a collaboration, isn't it?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker D: For me, as a lighting designer, I can't do a lighting design without speaking to Sam, because if she's designing a property and you've got two properties that are exactly the same, Sam's doing one, you've got Kelly Hoppen doing the other, they're going to be different designs. But also, even if the interior design was the same in terms of the furniture arrangements, what they're looking to achieve in terms of how people should perceive that space is different. So our job as lighting designers is to work out, like, what is the hierarchy of this space? What do you want people to see when they walk into that?
What are the important materials and things like that?
[00:10:22] Speaker F: And.
[00:10:22] Speaker D: And that's where we're trying to deliver Samantha's vision effectively.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: So how does this collaboration extend to somebody like James as a technical integrator who's all about control, perhaps?
[00:10:35] Speaker D: I think that's where the collaboration extends further and that's all. We're all part of the same discussion.
If James is doing the line design, then he will be talking directly to Sam. If we're doing it and James is doing the controls, we'll be passing information to James about the loadings of all of the different circuits and how we want to control the lighting to deliver the scenes at the end of the project, because you won't have all the lights being controlled together.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: That takes me back to our design team meetings. And everyone brings something, don't they?
[00:11:09] Speaker E: And every project is different as well. I mean, Sometimes there is a lighting designer on the project that's been brought in by the client. Other times there isn't. Sometimes the interior designer is really competent at lighting design and wants to drive that side of it and the creative side. Other times they don't. And it. There's. I would say there's no rules to how a project typically comes together and that's why you do need to be able to kind of adapt. And I mean, I had a conversation this afternoon where there was a lighting designer on the project, but she didn't want to get involved in anything to do with scene. Names of scenes, keypads, keypad positions, anything like that. They literally just wanted to specify the fittings.
But that's. That's pretty unusual. But it's not. It's. It does happen and. And you need to be prepared to work with. With people and make the project work and not be sort of stuck in your ways. This is how we do it, because every job's different.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: And that collaboration extends also to the manufacturer. Sean, I presume.
[00:12:08] Speaker F: Yeah. So I guess where we kind of come in is with obviously our own showroom being able to show people, because when we're talking about light, it's a feeling. You know, people come into a space and they feel it. When you go into McDonald's and the light is super bright, there's a certain feeling you get.
So we help, I guess we're helping everyone along the line for the customer to be able to actually experience it.
We go further where we do sometimes get involved with the engravings suggestions.
It's really just trying to, again, simplify the complexity of it, because there's a lot of a misconception that when you see a keypad.
Yeah, it's very confusing. I don't want it, what's going to happen type of thing. And we're just really trying to just make it very simple for people. That's really where we come in.
[00:12:57] Speaker E: Yeah. In our showroom pretty much every time. If someone's had a lighting control system before, quite often, sadly, they've not had a great experience with it. And it comes down to how it's implemented. Nothing to do with the product.
It's really important to make sure the systems are implemented properly and that those engravings, the labels on the buttons do happen, because if they don't, then you end up with a system that is impossible to use.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: And there's a whole language around describing lighting. I mean, it's a very overused word already in our conversation, light and lighting. But there's a whole kind of depth to the language that you use. I've heard, for example, layers, Lighting and layers. What on earth do you mean by that, Luke?
[00:13:43] Speaker D: Layers are, I guess, tools which allow you to create the different scenes and moods within the space. If you have everything on a. On the same layer, you can dim things up and you can dim things down.
It's fairly standard. It doesn't actually do a lot for the space. I mean, dimming is great, and that's like the first port of call. But a layered system will allow you to balance the lighting. So your pendant needs to be controlled separately from your down lights, for example, because the. A lot of the pendants, sometimes we won't actually dim them above 50% because where you have exposed light sources, they can be a bit glary, things like that. But also you need different sort of levels of lighting.
You want to consider table lamps at a lower level. You want something which emphasizes the volume of the space, maybe lighting up. So all of these different levels of lighting, and they're usually described as ambient, task and accent.
Typically, a good lighting scheme would have a combination of all of those.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Okay. And there's also static and dynamic. So do you want to talk a little bit about what we mean by that?
[00:14:54] Speaker D: That would be in regards to the color and the color temperature of the light source. So static or static dimming would be where you have a light source. And I think everyone's now familiar with color temperature being described in kelvins.
So you might have a 2,700 Kelvin light source, and you can dim that up and down.
As you dim it down, it reduces in intensity and it stays the same color.
Where you have a dynamic light source, you can actually change the color of the light source as it dims. And one of the most typical reasons you would use that is to replicate something similar to your incandescent light source. If want you, if anyone remembers what that was like, it was a thing of beauty where on full brightness, it was bright and it was white and it was really crisp. But as you turned the dimmer, it became warm, it became cozy, it became atmospheric. So it delivered something more unique to the space and made it made the whole mood of the space change. And that's something we can now start doing with led, which in the past has been more complicated to do.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Okay. So technically, things are moving in quite a positive direction. James.
[00:16:07] Speaker E: Yeah. And what Luke was saying is, right, that LEDs have been a bit of a step backwards in terms of quality of light until fairly recently, because halogen was a great source of light because it makes light in the same way that the sun does. It gets really hot. And so there's something called the blackbody curve, which is, which, which is that the kind of the, the curve of white light.
And when, when something gets really, really hot, like the, the embers in a fire, it gets to that kind of almost white hot temperature. And it's a similar thing with, with a halogen light bulb. It's basically a hot piece of wire. But LEDs work in a completely different way. And that's why people don't really like them, because they have this kind of intangible kind of flatness and coldness to them.
And now the technology's got to the point where it's actually pretty much as good as halogen was before.
And the new latest light source that Sean will be delighted for me to mention now, Ketra from Lutron, which, which is what we, we put in Samantha's amazing kitchen at warehouse is, is a, a complete step change in that it, it's, it completely tracks that blackbody curve so that I think there's 13 different LEDs inside a ketra fixture.
[00:17:26] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:17:27] Speaker E: And that completely mirror that curve so that it seems like daylight.
[00:17:33] Speaker F: Yeah.
I think, I guess the objective is to get as close as you can to the best source of light, which is the sun.
And ketra, as of right now, is the technology that's able to do that. And what that allows you to do is to have a great range of it being more of a bright light to, as what you were saying, a little bit more of a low lit candle. I think that's kind of really, if I was going to describe it, that's kind of how low it can go to.
I think the great thing about what you're saying, why it's going in the right direction is because we naturally, I think, like the nature of fire, we like light that's our source, and us being able to control that is important.
But if you're working with a flat light where it's just literally one tone and you can bring it down and up, you don't really get the same effect. So I do believe it's going in the right direction. And Catra is one of the technologies that's able to do that.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: So let's talk about your kitchen, because has anybody here seen the kitchen?
Let's have a look.
And talk. First of all, I mean, the guys have talked a lot of technical stuff here, but it is about feeling. What was the feeling that you wanted people to experience when they came into your kitchen?
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Well, with most of our projects, I wanted to feel like home.
We don't create spaces that feel like a show home, and you can't relax and live in them. I want you to feel like this is your home. And I think a lot of people that have come through the kitchen do say that to me. One of my old bosses, who I admire, she came through and said, it feels like home. So I just knew from that comment we did a good job.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: And talk about the lighting specifically and how that influenced or how you worked with that in the design and at what sort of stage you started thinking about lighting.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Oh, we do it from the offset, so we treat every project the same. So we did the ga. So it's furniture layout, spatial. And then with that, we do floor finishes, plans, and reflective ceiling plans. So I do do my allocations of lighting, but then I feed it down to the team and then give me their professional feedback and guidance. And then that's replicated into. Once we get that signed off, we then do all the internal elevations as well, and then tender it and then cost it and then implement it. Okay. So we pretty much did that same process with Wowhouse.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Right. Okay. So at a very early stage, you're thinking how the light is going to work, and what did you effect in the room with lights? What do you say your.
Your biggest wins with it?
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Well, I like what Luke's called the bird beak. Is it third beak detail?
I like that detail and the amount of people that come through and just taking pictures of it, top, left, and bottom. I think that shows that they like it too.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Tell me more. What is that?
[00:20:23] Speaker D: I think it's a. I think it was designed by our creative director, Sally Storey. She started using this detail maybe 10 years ago, but it's only actually appeared on a few projects. You guys already had it in the designs before you started speaking to me.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: I saw it in a hotel in Paris. I did the top, bottom, and then
[00:20:44] Speaker D: I gave you some dimensions to make it happen. But you've essentially got a light source which is running horizontally at the front of the shelf, which is lighting directly back towards the back of the unit. And then you have a triangular intersection on the. On the shelf itself, which almost splits the light source, so it throws the light up and down.
So from one light source, you're lighting the shelf above and the shelf below as well. So it's quite an interesting detail. And you don't see where the light is coming from at all, which is always the Goal with lighting.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah, you feel it but you don't necessarily notice it, which is kind of weird, isn't it?
[00:21:21] Speaker D: I think, you know, we always want the focus to be on the interiors. It could be the fabrics or it could be the objects which are on the shelf.
As soon as you see a light source directly, because that's the brightest thing, that's what you're drawn to. Your eyes just naturally do that.
So if you can make the brightest thing an amazing object on the shelf, you know, that's where you're onto a winner because that's what we want you to see. That's the main feature, not an LED strip. Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: And James, you talked a bit about Quetra, as did Sean there. So how is that sort of curve working in that kitchen?
[00:21:59] Speaker E: Well, we did a little demo to kind of show like the day in the life of a kitchen. It kind of takes you through where you've got the kind of the middle of the day and the sun's really bright and you've got this really kind of almost bluey kind of white light, kind of like it is, or like it was maybe three or four hours ago outside.
And then in the evening it warms up and it gets cozier and the light gets a bit more orangey and, and dims down.
But the clever thing about the system is that it's really hard to demonstrate in a one minute demonstration downstairs.
But when you live with it in the house. I've been lucky enough to be beta testing this new product in my house for the last couple of months and it's just awesome. You can't describe how great it is to live in a space where the lightning inside just kind of mirrors what's going on outside without you really noticing, without you doing anything.
You just turn the lights in the morning. So when I get up at six in the morning and the lights come on, they're orangey kind of tones and to get your day started and then. And they imperceptibly just sort of change throughout the day.
So in the middle of the day it's like bright sunlight and then, yeah, back through to something cozy and warm and getting you ready for. And your mind ready for bed in the evening.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: So, Sean, I'm listening to this thinking, aren't you pressing buttons to make all this happen? Has. How's it doing it?
[00:23:24] Speaker F: So it has something that's called the natural show, where it will pretty much follow sunrise, sunset, anywhere in the world. It's a very, very intelligent system. So as James is saying, you press natural, natural show, and it would follow wherever you are in the world, what's happening. So you wouldn't actually have to press anything.
It will be understanding. Okay, this is where the sun is. This is where we are in the day.
[00:23:48] Speaker E: I saw it, Sean doing it all remote control.
[00:23:52] Speaker F: No, no, I'm not that smart.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: So, Samantha, in your kitchen, if you're going to visit it at different times of the day here in warehouse, you're going to get a slightly different experience. Is that.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Is that right?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah, you do. And it's. And that's what's nice about how we brought that into the kitchen is because from a design point, I wanted to show the kitchen from day to night and how it's a multifunctional room. You don't just use it as one point for a study, for a sample and just do a few hours. You use that room from day to night. So it's nice.
It plays on the story that we thought in with the kitchen.
[00:24:26] Speaker D: It doesn't have to follow the daylight, does it? I think with some interior spaces, you don't necessarily want it to reflect what's happening outside because you want something that is a bit warmer. Some interior spaces you go to because you want security, you want warmth, and sometimes warmer color tones feel more luxurious as well. So it makes the interiors look a little bit more high end. So the good thing is that we were able to, when we're doing the scene setting, we're able to play with the color and the warmth of the light.
So Sam's kitchen that she's designed has got a tendency towards green throughout. There's a theme that goes through it, and there's the marble and there's the artwork and there's the fabrics and everything.
So trying to design that on paper and work out which color temperature would be the most suitable for that is really difficult to do. But with a product like the. The Ketra one that we used within the. The show house, you're able to define that after the fact at the commissioning stage. So rather than choosing a color temperature, we just have a slider for temperature. It didn't really matter whether it was 2 sap2700 or 2400 or whatever. It was just done visually what looks best and that then creates your scene. That was a good tool to have.
[00:25:47] Speaker E: Yeah. And that's kind of because up until now, really, we've just been dealing with levels, you know, so when you're setting a scene in a room, you say, I'll turn the pendant down. A bit, and the uplights up a bit, and. But now there's a whole nother dimension to consider.
And that's before you even get into bringing color into it, which I know you're not a big fan of. But. But there are. There are occasions where it might be appropriate, but probably not in a. In a kitchen like Samantha's. You know, if you had a sort of purple light in there or something, it wouldn't really vibe with the place.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: But get rid of that pink light.
[00:26:22] Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker F: But it's also giving people the option because there are some people who don't like it. We're not going to say any names, and there are some people who do like it.
One way I like to describe it to interior designers, everyone is like, we're the paint and you're the painter. Whereas before, you probably wouldn't have the option to do that, or if you did, it would have been a longer route. Whereas now, if you do want to do it, you can.
And that flexibility is huge. And I think it's a big game change in the industry.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you don't. When we change interiors, which is what we do, you know, quite frequently for clients. Well, not that often, but, you know, every five or eight years, they might want to refresh or something. Accessories. Then you. If you're changing the palettes. I don't need to change the lights. I just orchestrate what I want. Yeah, it's really good.
[00:27:11] Speaker C: Light is a storyteller. It shapes how we feel about every interior.
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[00:28:15] Speaker A: It sounds to me. I mean, we talk about lighting being thought of differently. It sounds to me like you're thinking about lighting very much like it's its own material in a way.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Would you say?
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I would. And sound?
[00:28:28] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: That's a whole other podcast, but that. I think it's quite interesting. And maybe it would be fair to say, Luke, that light has been something that was much more functional in the past, rather than seen as something that you can play with in this kind of creative way.
Yeah.
[00:28:52] Speaker D: Seeing as A technical thing. And we sometimes we get asked to do lighting calculations for clients to tell them how much light they're going to get in a space and is it going to be enough. But that's a very subjective thing.
Most of the projects we work on are residential projects and there's no rule over how much light that you need within those spaces. It's really trying to deliver something that looks aesthetically good, but also of the opinion of the client being enough light. So having their input on that is really important. Demonstrating the effect of what they're going to achieve and having a bit of trust in the lighting designer as well to deliver what's appropriate is important. But yeah, moving away from designing by numbers and doing more of what Sean said, painting the room with lighting. And that's what we're trying to do.
[00:29:44] Speaker E: And with this, all of these amazing new tools we've got as well, there's more room to screw up, frankly. Say you can ruin a room with bad lighting. Well, even if, say we've done an amazing job of putting the right fixtures in the right places, we could have really messed up that room by putting loads of weird colors in there. So there is an interesting extra skill that the sort of technology integrator needs to think about now, and it's how to use this massive palette of colors that we've got now with the color, because it's not just the warm and the cool white. We can do greens and blues and reds and whatever's, but it's often not appropriate for the room. So I think that technology integrators are going to have to kind of really start to get in touch with their feminine side and, and start thinking about avoiding the temptation to just use the color because it's there. Do you know what I mean? Because really this, this new light source is about creating the best white light. Now it has 13 different colored LEDs in it. That doesn't mean that you should really use them all. You just mix them all to make the best white light. Do you see what I mean? That looks most light.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
[00:30:56] Speaker E: Yeah. And that has been a thing in our industry for quite some time. But, but this is another example of that, that there's this sort of amazing new technology that has the potential to be great, but it could also screw it up. Done in the, you know, done the wrong way.
[00:31:11] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: And what I've seen as well with Warehouse 2026 is that lighting in so many of these rooms is amazing.
Again, as we were talking about. You're not necessarily aware of it, but it's making you feel about those spaces
[00:31:28] Speaker D: quite differently when you say, absolutely, yeah. I mentioned that a lot of people are talking about the furniture and the decorative lighting or the fabrics. A lot of people talking about the air con.
Not so many people talking about the lighting. But I see that as a pat on the back and, well, for the rooms that we've been involved in anyway, that, you know, it's a sign of a good lighting scheme is one that you don't notice because it's controlling the glare.
It's drawing your attention towards other things. That's not the lighting. You know, we're not rock stars. We don't want to be seen ourselves. It's more about elevating what the interior designer and the architect does.
That's what you should be noticing. We want to take a backseat and just help deliver that for the client.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: But I do think the show's had a lot of interest because of the catcher and it being launched in the kitchen. I think that's had loads of techies have come in and asked me lots of typical question.
[00:32:25] Speaker F: It's something that you need to see.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:28] Speaker F: Something us talking about. Even now I'm explaining it to people in here. If you have or haven't seen it, you're only going to experience so much. When you go and see it and feel it, that's when you'll get it. Same as even for people who work at Lutron. When I first heard it, I was a bit like, oh, okay, it's another light source. Okay, it's another downlight. But yeah, it is different when you feel it. Yeah.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: And how do you think, James, the lighting technology here at Wowhouse, how do you think that's going to make life better and easier for the design and installation process?
[00:33:01] Speaker E: Well, everything that we've done in that room is wireless, so that certainly makes it easier. The design and installation process in that particular room was a challenge.
We had a very tight timescale to do it all in, but it would have been much.
There's no way we could have done it if we were running all the normal cables that we might have run because the entire system is wireless.
So rather than us, you know, traditionally, lighting control systems have needed great big dimming panels that take up an entire wall in a house.
Well, everything in that room runs off a little processor that's like that big.
So it's just a different way of doing stuff. And so the, the. The brains is moving from an equipment Rack in a plant room somewhere to the ceiling, you know, and that's all the furniture or wherever that.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: And that's really interesting from a designer's perspective because you're about creating the effect and not really wanting to think about all the space that might be needed to create that. Well, definitely that's now taking that problem away anyway.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Helps eliminate. Oh yeah. They all like to take over the space. Emily particularly come in, bulldoze the interior with need a storeroom. But no, it really hasn't taken up much room. It's just a top left cupboard.
Yeah, we just had a ladder up there for a few hours, didn't we, James?
And that was that.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: That was that.
[00:34:32] Speaker D: More room for bay beans.
[00:34:34] Speaker E: You made it sound so easy.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: I mean, what do you think, Luke, as a lighting designer? What. What the future looks like from. From that sort of respect?
[00:34:43] Speaker D: I think Ketra and products like Ketra are going to continue to evolve. There's definitely an interest in the dynamic side of lighting as a lighting designer. If you guys can continue to move that forward, I'd like to see that with, with different products. Uplights, floor washes, miniaturizations, things like that.
[00:35:08] Speaker E: That's where the only piece in the
[00:35:09] Speaker D: puzzle we'll go to in the future.
But yeah, it's definitely exciting times because we've had the LED revolution and like James said, it was almost a step backwards. You're paying three times as much for something that's not as good.
But the, the, the benefits of LED have been the longevity, low energy, but also the miniaturization. You're able to do things now which are absolutely tiny. So from my perspective as lighting designer, where I don't want you to see a light source, it's so much easier to conceal something from view in an architectural detail or a joinery detail. Like that's making it easier for us to create the magic and draw more emphasis to the interiors and creating the magic.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: James, you still need to talk at an early stage to do that, don't you? It's not like you and afterthought now because it's also easy and wireless and everything.
[00:36:01] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. I mean there's the. Yeah. We often get. People come to us and say, isn't everything just wireless now? They don't need to run any cables. But it's not just the cables. It's the, it's the architecture of the building as well. You know, we might be lighting your curtains and if we are, we need to, you know, we need to think about that before maybe the steels go in or the ceilings go in or whatever. So. So there's so many reasons to start thinking about your lighting at the same time as you start thinking about, you know, before you start thinking about your kitchen, which is often what most people start with when they're doing a big project. The kitchen always gets a lot of attention.
But I'd like to see people starting to think about lighting at a similar early stage as well. And not just lighting, but just technology in general.
Because, you know, most people want great WI fi everywhere, but you need wires to deliver great WI fi in anything bigger than a two bed, semi detached house, you know.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: And Samantha, from your perspective, the designer that perhaps doesn't feel comfortable talking about the technical side of, of what, what's going on in the, in these systems?
What's the approach? How, how should, how would you advise designers to talk? To talk technical.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: So talk technical. Well, you can just talk it like layman terms like I do. And most people get that. Or you. If I've got. I've got clients that don't really get it, but they just want the quiet luxury and just want me to implement it. So you just go away and do that. Or you can. I've got clients that are quite tech savvy and James literally will have hours of conversations with another client of mine. Don't you, James? All about tech. They're just tech, tech, tech. So it's like. Yeah, I guess it's just who you align with and just evolving it from there. But I guess I do understand most of what they say.
[00:37:49] Speaker E: That's not always the best, I'd say. I'd say most of our clients are, are not technical at all. They just want a lovely house.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah. They just come to you to do it, don't you? Sort out.
[00:37:58] Speaker E: There are always exceptions, but.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: And what about the, the quality of light as well? I think that's something that often gets overlooked. You can just talk about lighting, but actually quality really matters. So just talk a little about that, Luke.
[00:38:14] Speaker D: Quality. Yeah.
A lot of clients will get to a point in the project where the budgets have run.
It happens all the time. So there's always a value engineering process that happens. And lighting is probably the first port of call. I don't know why.
[00:38:32] Speaker E: I think Speakers.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Speakers maybe.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: I think it's FF and E. They've got the chicken.
[00:38:37] Speaker D: Maybe we've all got our.
You're right then.
[00:38:41] Speaker E: You're right.
[00:38:41] Speaker D: Lying's on the kill list anyway.
[00:38:43] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker D: And you know, they'll. You Know, someone will have presented an alternative product.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: A contractor.
[00:38:51] Speaker D: A contractor says, I can get you this down the road.
It costs £10 instead of £100 or whatever it might be. And to be fair, when you look at a picture of it, it does look similar.
But actually that's just the physical format of the fitting in the ceiling. The most important thing about lighting is what it's delivering into the space.
And that's where you really need to be referring to the technical details.
How much light are you getting? Is it the right color temperature? What's the quality of the driver? How well does it dim?
Is it compatible with the system?
[00:39:25] Speaker E: Just look at it like, say, that demo in our showroom.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah. The flowers are really good.
[00:39:30] Speaker E: We got two vases lit with the best downlight you can buy in an electrical wholesaler, which is not that great. And then. And then a John Cullen downlight. And the. The two vases look astonishingly different.
And you know, when people start talking about, how can I save some money and why would I pay five, six, seven times as much for your downlight than the one from the electrical wholesaler? When they see the difference of these two vases and the flowers and the colors and the richness of the colors, no one wants the cheap downlight.
[00:40:03] Speaker F: They have to see it and feel it.
[00:40:04] Speaker E: You do have to see it. Yeah.
[00:40:06] Speaker F: Car. In a way, yes.
[00:40:08] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:40:08] Speaker F: You buy a cheap car or you getting a Porsche.
Yeah, they both drive, but you're gonna feel the difference in the Porsche. Right. They both do the same thing technically, but when you feel and you see it, it's very different.
[00:40:21] Speaker E: Yeah, but if you'd only ever driven a Ford Fiesta, you'd think it was awesome.
So that's why we need to, we need to educate people and show them this stuff.
[00:40:32] Speaker D: But what you're talking about is flowers, which is maybe 30 pounder bunch of flowers or something.
Samantha's specifying fabrics and finishes. The client, you know, may have a Picasso or, you know, some amazing piece of artwork. And then when you put that 10 pound downlight in, you're sucking all of the value out of everything that's been specified.
Lighting is something that touches everything in your experience and day to day.
[00:40:59] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker D: And every day. Yeah. So if you want to enhance and deliver the true value of everything in your home, then lighting has to be good quality.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: And I suppose the other part of that quality conversation is not just about light, but also shade and how you work with that in an interior. So that, again, is an important part of the conversation, isn't It.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: And that's why I like the play that we've done. I'd call it the play, the performance in the kitchen where we do the light and you brought through coffee. Morning ritual to entertaining with friends is shown day to night. But equally, it shows how the fabrics do transform. And I think that's most designs, when they take. You take the materials to a client if you're scheming in the office versus taking it to their home, sometimes a fabric can change its shade, and that just is a good demo of lighting, you know, and hence why natural light is the best light. And equally, being in the kitchen is. It is quite a complimentary light for ladies. You know, with their makeup on, you feel really comfortable. It makes everything. You don't feel like, you know, you're in the dentist. Yeah. So it's nice.
[00:42:04] Speaker D: Yeah. I think lighting is something that's difficult to describe.
We can show pictures to a client, mood boards, things like this. You can hold a product in your hand, but it's all about the experience.
And if you. If you're an interior designer and you know that your project needs lighting, but you're not sure how to convince the client, it's difficult. It's very difficult. And they don't want to add another consultant. They don't want to add another cost.
They don't understand the value of it and what it can do to change a space. That's where spaces like the Home Play showroom, the Lutron Experience center, the John Cullen showroom, are so valuable because honestly, if a client goes in there and they spend 10 minutes, they get it, and then they're like, okay, you got
[00:42:57] Speaker B: to get into that showroom first.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And Samantha, I mean, that. That is a challenge that you're continually going to face, isn't it?
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. But I think. I think when a client gets the right team, they get the right advice and guidance. And I don't think lighting or, you know, when you guys will talk technical terms. For me, it doesn't. It doesn't phase me. It, to me, is quite simple, what we do, you know, because clients want simple functions. They just want it to just technology just to work for them and sort of quietly. And I think that's what we just deliver.
[00:43:32] Speaker D: And it's not actually expensive, really, in the scheme of things, in terms of all of the other things that you'll be spending money on in. In a. In the projects that we work on.
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:42] Speaker D: Lighting is a small element of it, but it's something that's so Influential and
[00:43:48] Speaker B: I think it's just getting clients to understand that. And I think when they, if you're guiding them the right way, you guide them to the right teams and professionals, then they'll be guided down the right path and they don't need to go full blown lighting package and spend an amount. They can, you can do it and work with them, you know, to work with budgets like we do all our projects, you know.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Okay, so final piece of advice for the audience here. What would you want their takeaway to be?
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Well, it's called Summer party. So I think we should all go and have a drink and have a banter.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: We're going to do that in a minute.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: What about you, Luke?
[00:44:32] Speaker D: I think don't underestimate the power of light and what it can do to the interiors and the architecture. Don't undervalue it and don't take the easy path and let the electrician or the architect do it or expect them to do it, like get proper support on it.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: James?
[00:44:51] Speaker E: Yeah, Luke said what I was going to say, but best way. Sorry.
No, it really is just making sure that you make lighting an important part of your entire budget project.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: I think it touches everything, doesn't it?
[00:45:03] Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. Because if you're going to hire an interior designer and spend money on furniture and fabrics and all these things, it's insane not to light it properly. So, yeah, easy for you to agree
[00:45:15] Speaker A: with all of that.
[00:45:16] Speaker F: I could be a bit boring.
I would say to everyone in the audience is build connections, build relationships. You know, you're not going to remember everything.
Other people are specialists in what they are in. So work with them, use them. And that's, that's my advice. Let's not shy away from connecting and building relationship with each other and that's where the power is with it.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: What a brilliant, brilliant conversation. Round of applause for our panel.
And thank you also our live audience. I think you've been wonderful. Lots of whooping, lots of cheering, lots of laughing even. So thank you very much to you and also thanks to our event partner Lutron for their support to the tonight. If you want to find out more about light, shade and anything else to do with lighting, then I'm sure that Sean is sticking around from Lutron. We'll be happy to talk with you afterwards as indeed will all our panelists tonight.
Thank you also to our hosts here at the Design Club and the Design center for their hospitality this evening.
Finally, we'd like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel, the Interior Design Business podcast where you can find past episodes, clips and extra fun content too. The interior design business is a Wildwood plus production. Thank you so much.
