Header: “MANNA Hotel by Eleftheria Deko & Associates Lighting Design”, photo by Gavriil Papadiotis, Stavros Habakis
Lighting design has evolved significantly over the past few decades, changing from being a simple functionality to becoming an integral part of architectural and interior design. Once considered a purely technical aspect of a project, lighting is now recognised as a critical element in shaping experiences, influencing our mood, and enhancing the visual qualities of a space. The field gained momentum in the mid-to-late 20th century as architects and designers began collaborating with specialised lighting consultants, which ended up leading to more sophisticated applications of light in buildings and urban environments.
Today, lighting design firms operate worldwide, using advanced technology, sustainable practices, and creativity to transform spaces of all kinds. From cultural landmarks to commercial developments, hospitality venues to residences, lighting design plays a crucial role in defining atmosphere and, therefore, user experience. With so many firms contributing to the field, identifying the leading names can be a challenge; that’s why we brought you a list of the 15 most innovative lighting design studios out there—in our humble and professional opinion.
1. Brandston Partnership Inc.
Brandston Partnership Inc. (BPI) is an architectural lighting design firm with a portfolio spanning over 5,000 projects across North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Founded in 1966 by Howard Brandston, the firm has been recognised with multiple industry awards and honours, holding a team of 160 specialists across offices in New York, China, Singapore, and South Korea. The firm has worked on several big projects worldwide, but its work is diverse: from historic restorations to contemporary urban developments, the designers don’t shy away from new challenges.
Zhang Yuan (2022)
The Zhang Yuan project involved the lighting design for a historic Shikumen alley complex in Shanghai, known for its well-preserved early 20th-century architecture. Warm tones and subtle illumination techniques emphasise the texture of the brick facades and their many details, guiding visitors through historical courtyards and passageways.
2. Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design
Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design (CBB) is a lighting design firm founded in 1985 by Francesca Bettridge, Stephen Bernstein, and the late Carroll Cline. The firm’s scope is wide, covering everything from corporate offices, cultural institutions, educational facilities, healthcare centres, hospitality venues, landscapes, and private residences. With a 17-person team, CBB is a certified Woman-Owned Business Enterprise that has received over 175 awards for its work. Furthermore, the firm’s portfolio includes projects across the United States and internationally, having been featured in various architectural and design publications.
Emerson College Student Dining Center (2018)
The lighting design for the Emerson College Student Dining Center was curated specifically for its interior, which heavily draws from theatrical design elements. The space is covered in exposed brick walls, visible ductwork, and abstract proscenium-like forms, and the lighting reinforces these architectural elements.
Integrated textile lighting panels, capable of displaying dynamic video content, contribute to an adaptable building: during the day, the lighting maintains a comfortable environment for students, while in the evening, it transforms the space for performances and social gatherings.
3. Expolight
Expolight is a lighting design firm that specialises in the art of integrating technology and aesthetics, having worked on over 2,000 projects worldwide. Based in Ukraine, Expolight has gained multiple awards, all of which recognise the firm’s unique lighting designs, where the functional always meets the artistic.
Selyam Restaurant (2023)
Selyam Restaurant’s lighting design was created to enhance the natural textures of its materials and decor elements, which means that even the plants were highlighted—their shadows can even be considered as decor themselves. The designers were looking into creating an atmosphere that feels natural, so the lighting was programmed to adjust throughout the day, following four different scenarios: morning, day, evening, and late evening. With these transitions, the space always feels comfortable and suited to the time of day.
4. Ning Field Lighting Design
Ning Field Lighting Design has been working in the industry for 25 years, collaborating with architects, planners, landscape designers, interior designers, and artists to bring their projects to life through the use of light. The firm focuses on exploring the texture of light, developing distinctive lighting styles, and creating lasting visual impressions. As such, and rather than treating lighting as a simple functional element, Ning Field Lighting Design tries to integrate it naturally into architecture, allowing light to become part of the built environment.
Chapel of Sound (2021)
Chapel of Sound is a monolithic concrete structure shaped like a rock, located in a valley near the Great Wall, that was designed to enhance natural acoustics while remaining integrated in its surroundings. The lighting design was crucial to bring the concept to life, as can be seen in how the visitors are softly guided through the structure without there being any overbearing effects on the landscape.
A dimly lit stairway leads into a natural light-filled hall, artificial downlights lie within the ceiling, a dark-light reflector brings comfort to the auditorium, ensuring visual comfort without overpowering the natural atmosphere, and recessed wall lamps contribute to the subtle and intentional design, with passersby barely noticing what hides with the rock.
5. Kris Lin International Design
KLID International Architecture Design Office is a Taipei-based firm founded 19 years ago that has worked extensively with China’s top real estate developers and on projects across Southeast Asia. Across its portfolio, one can notice how busy they’ve kept: sales offices, cultural and commercial spaces, hotels, luxury residences, and corporate interiors fill the pages. KLID is one of the few firms out there that goes all in when they accept a challenge, offering architectural design, interior design, decoration, and landscape planning.
River Palace (2021)
River Palace is located right where four rivers merge, at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The project was inspired by the concept of “setting sail“, having used the shape of yachts as a reference to reflect the site’s connection to water and luxury. The whole ordeal reflects movement, from the architectural form to the choice of materials.
Inside, the design maintains the theme intact: water features, a reception hall ceiling that reinterprets meteorological changes, and, of course, light. Blue gradients give the corridors an “underwater” feel, with the same geometric patterns used in the reception hall reminding one of the light corals that cover the ocean floor of the many paradises of the world.
6. RDesign International Lighting
RDesign International Lighting, founded in 2012, provides design services for projects covering urban planning, high-rise buildings, mixed-use developments, transportation hubs, hotels, exhibitions, and art installations. With offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and New York, the company collaborates with architects, developers, and design firms from all over the world, always integrating technology whenever possible.
Guangming Culture & Art Center (2020)
The lighting design for Guangming Culture & Art Center was inspired by the Milky Way, separating the site into zones of varying brightness, all of which radiate outward from the central entrance: the “Humanistic Eye“. After exploring a bit more, a grid of stage lighting fixtures appears, responding to human movement with dynamic effects. As visitors move through the space, they become part of the installation, an interactive element that transforms the Center into an innovative experience.
7. Eleftheria Deko & Associates Lighting Design
Eleftheria Deko and Associates is a world-renowned lighting design studio that specialises in architectural, stage, and event lighting. With experience in a wide range of public and private projects, the multidisciplinary team develops lighting solutions tailored to the specific needs of each client.
Acropolis of Athens and Monuments (2020)
The lighting design for the Acropolis of Athens was developed with a deep respect and understanding of its historical and architectural significance. The project, funded by the Onassis Foundation, required the designers to carefully study the site’s materials, forms, and visibility from various points across the city. The goal? Highlight the unique qualities of each monument in a cohesive and subtle scheme.
Different focusing angles, variations in colour temperature, and controlled light intensity were some of the techniques used to highlight the textures of the Parthenon’s marble, the ruggedness of the rock, and the fortification walls. The lighting was, therefore, designed to enhance the Acropolis both up close and from a distance, ensuring it receives the visibility it deserves without overwhelming it.
8. Eureka Lighting
Eureka, a brand within the Acuity Brands Lighting and Controls portfolio, has been designing and manufacturing decorative luminaires since 1987. The company specialises in creating specification-grade lighting solutions that allow designers and architects to bring their concepts to life, an approach that earned them a portfolio of modern, multi-award-winning products. Sustainability is a key focus for these designers, as they strive to create energy-efficient designs by using recyclable materials and responsible manufacturing processes.
Celeste (2020)
Celeste is a decorative lighting fixture made from cast glass that was designed for both small clusters and large-scale installations. Each Celeste head has an integrated connector that allows multiple units to be stacked vertically, offering users the chance to let their imagination run wild.
Personalisation is, indeed, the top element of this design, as it comes with three canopy options: Droplet, a single-cable canopy in black; Drop, a three- to six-cable cluster that comes in black, chrome, or white; and Array, a rectangular canopy with three or five cables.
9. Tillotson Design Associates
Tillotson Design Associates (TDA) is a lighting design firm founded in 2004 that works on high-profile projects ranging from corporate headquarters and universities to museums, performance halls, and retail spaces. The firm has contributed to over 100 LEED-certified projects, including the Bloomberg European Headquarters, which achieved a 98.5% BREEAM score, the highest for an office building at the time.
Bloomberg European Headquarters (2017)
The lighting design for Bloomberg European Headquarters sees layers after layers after layer. The facade is dressed in a ribbon of crystalline fins edge-lit with concealed LEDs, with linear LEDs embedded within the stone base to illuminate the soffits. Inside, the ceiling is composed of two million three-dimensional metal “petals”, each holding individual LEDs calibrated to a reduced output. This type of system ensures an even illumination while keeping glare to a minimum, contributing not only to a pleasant ambiance but also to the wider energy efficiency of the building.
10. Lichtvision Design
Lichtvision was founded in 1997 by four lighting researchers from TU Berlin: Karsten Ehling, Thomas Knoop, Thomas Müller, and Raoul Hesse. Since then, the firm has welcomed new technology as it appears, having also expanded internationally by opening offices in London, Hong Kong, Barcelona, and Shanghai.
Humboldt Forum Interior (2022)
The lighting design for the Humboldt Forum had as a main goal the unification of the building’s diverse spaces while respecting its baroque and modern architectural elements. In the exhibition areas and the central entrance hall, the design was planned around daylight, with bits and pieces of artificial lighting placed without drawing attention to the fixtures.
The exhibition lighting was designed for high colour rendering and precise modelling of exhibits, and throughout the project, sustainability was a key, as the lighting was developed with a long-term perspective.
11. ambience
Ambience is a Melbourne-based lighting design and manufacturing firm founded in 1987 that integrates lighting design, production, and supply all under one roof. Their team includes designers, technologists, fabricators, and project managers, which allows them to control every stage of a project, and they work across workplace, retail, residential, hospitality, and public infrastructure projects—both in Australia and internationally. They’ve worked with premium brands like Hilton, Aesop, MUJI, Nike, and Rolex, having been recognised multiple times by global design awards and magazines alike.
Scanlan Theodore (2024)
The Scanlan Theodore project is a warm and intimate retail space where layered illumination worked its magic by enhancing both the space and the garments on display. The designers took inspiration from runway lighting when deciding how to present the fabrics and textures, so ultra-small and ultra-warm luminaires were used alongside a high-CRI HD projector with customised photographic lenses, allowing for precise framing and heightened colour accuracy.
Sustainability was not pushed aside, as the designer added wireless Casambi dimming to reduce energy use and extend luminaire lifespan, plus the fixtures were selected for their energy efficiency, recyclability, and ability to be repurposed at the end of their lifecycle.
12. Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht is an international lighting design office with offices in Bonn, Berlin, and Bangalore, along with the LKL Design Hub in Barcelona. With a portfolio of over 1,000 completed projects, the firm works on every type of scale, from cultural and commercial buildings to urban master plans. Specialists in both artificial and daylight planning, the team is known to prioritise the effect of light over the design of fixtures, with their in-house luminaire development allowing them to tailor their work to the needs of each project.
Oscar Niemeyer Sphere (2020)
The Oscar Niemeyer Sphere brings geometry in architecture to another level, and its lighting design couldn’t accentuate it more. Exterior lighting highlights the curvature of the structure, whereas inside, the lighting attempts to make the space appear bigger. The designers followed the lines of the structure to place the fixtures, which ensured an even, indirect glow that further reinforces the abnormal shape of the structure.
13. L’Observatoire International
L’Observatoire International is a lighting design firm founded in 1993 by Hervé Descottes that is widely recognised as one of the best out there. The firm collaborates with architects, interior designers, and developers on projects spanning cultural institutions, museums, performing arts centres, large-scale public spaces, private residences, commercial properties, and master plans. Its portfolio includes collaborations with architects such as Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Bjarke Ingels, with renowned projects including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the National Museum of Qatar, and the High Line in New York.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial (2020)
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial features a large stainless-steel tapestry, bronze sculptures, and an inscription wall, all positioned within a four-acre plaza, lightened up by layered lighting fixtures. Pathways, the central memorial space, and surrounding streetlighting are all illuminated by the same “horizontal layers” approach, which encloses the memorial and creates an almost ethereal atmosphere.
This approach subtly delineates each of the spaces without physical barriers, as the main elements of the memorial are highlighted with focused illumination while the rest of the environment is enveloped in a soft glow.
14. Light Collab
Light Collab is a lighting design firm that specialises in the integration of light into architectural spaces, using it to highlight a building’s most unique features. The company’s portfolio shows mostly urban development projects of various types, all of which saw light transform them into landmarks. Based in Singapore, Light Collab takes on both local and international projects, being known to apply the latest in sustainable technology to all of their new stages.
Neo Garden Headquarters (2022)
The lighting design for Neo Garden Headquarters was developed to highlight the building’s aluminium façade panels while incorporating the client’s request of a dynamic and colourful display. Concealed LED strips and profiles follow the bending radii of the panels, ensuring an even glow, with a selection of five to seven colours chosen for daily lighting.
Due to the company’s care for sustainability, the project achieved Singapore Green Mark Gold Plus certification, with an overall energy savings of 35% from the baseline: given the relatively dark surroundings, low-output fixtures were used, along with scene controls that turn off the façade lighting after 22h.
15. Electrolight
Electrolight is a lighting design studio founded in Melbourne in 2004, having later opened extra offices in Sydney and San Francisco. The firm takes in projects of all types, from architecture to interior design and industrial design to engineering, and the team is involved in professional organisations such as the International Association of Lighting Designers and the Illumination Engineers Society.
Inka (2021)
The lighting design for Inka, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant in Canberra, Australia, was developed to complement the interior design’s fusion of cultures and motifs. The lighting scheme balances vibrant accent illuminations with controlled ambient glow, which ends up enhancing the colours, textures, and materials scattered around the space, drawn from both Japanese and Peruvian traditions.
Custom fixtures and integrated lighting help define different areas within the restaurant, separating the dynamic social spaces from the more intimate dining zones. Furthermore, the lighting also aligns with the restaurant’s culinary concepts, which reinforce this balance between South American and Japanese culture just as much as the interior design itself.
