Project: Lighting for a modern city centre townhouse
A lighting design case study featuring a modern city centre townhouse.
Joinery lighting
Lighting for shelving, wardrobes, cabinets. Joinery lighting is a way of adding richness, colour and texture to a space.
Joinery lighting adds an extra dimension to a space.
Building lighting into joinery, whether it be shelving, cabinetry, wardrobes or kitchen units, can add an extra dimension to the lighting in a space. There are many different ways to do it so let's look at the questions you need to ask and the practical elements that need to be considered.
What you are you planning to light?
Understanding what you are going to be lighting is the first step in designing a joinery lighting scheme. In shelving you might be lighting specific objects, you might be lighting an array of objects such as books, or you might simply be looking for ambient lighting for a space. A solid block of books can't be lit from behind or directly above where individual items might be better lit with a single spot from above.
How is the joinery constructed?
Looking at shelves again, are the shelves fixed or adjustable? What are the shelves made of? How thick are they. The nature of the joinery is going to have a huge impact on how you light it. An 18mm shelf might not give you enough depth to recess even the shallowest of linear LED fittings. Glass shelves don't allow linear LED to be used directly in the shelves themselves but offer other opportunties.
Ideas for linear LED joinery lighting
Let's look at some different ideas for lighting shelving. This is a selection of images from different projects using a variety of techniques.
The lit effect can be changed by changing installation positions
Linear LED lighting can be installed in the topside or underside of shelving. Combining the two gives a stronger glow and very even coverage.
Installing the linear fittings further back in shelving is more visually recessive and works well with a more open shelving layout. Installing the fittings on the rear of shelves as in the images of the blue-backed shelves gives a striking yet low-glare effect
Front lighting works better when working with more solid objects such as books. Side lighting is a different look but is a useful technique when the shelves are adjustable as the light source is separated from the shelves themselves.
Kitchen shelf lighting
This quick case study shows what the shelving lighting is adding to the kitchen lighting scheme. There are high-output downlights over the work surface and sink area which are used when the kitchen is in full cooking mode.
The shelf lighting fills in the lighting, providing shadow-free light under the shelves and gives great ambient lighting for the shelving features when the downlights are off and the homeowners are settling down to dinner in the dining area. It's a subtle additional layer of light that makes a big difference.
Joinery lighting works well in more traditional interiors
We find or create mounting locations that make the fittings less obvious than in modern open shelving and select the optimium colour temperature and rendering to bring out the textures and colours of the objects on display. The lighting in the large display cabinet is particularly warm to sit well with the candlelight that makes up the bulk of the lighting in this glorious dining room.
Using point sources in joinery lighting
Point sources, miniature LED downlights work well when you've got something specific to light and you're working with smaller shelves or niches. We use very shallow miniature LED fittings with very good colour rendering.
Joinery lighting ideas in some of our projects
