Contextualizing Light: Lighting Design Solutions in a Changing World

Headquartered in New York, AWA is an international architectural lighting design firm founded by Abhay Wadhwa. They design and implement lighting solutions for a diverse range of projects internationally - creating solutions that evoke a sense of place instead of mere space. They pride themselves on their adept application of creative and technical methods, as they embrace diverse influences, ideas, and design paradigms. The result is lighting design that remains ever-aware of the people who will live, work, communicate, and interact in the buildings and structures they light. Their clients value their design sensibility for the moods and moments it elicits, and the ways it illuminates the materials and structures they envisioned.

About the Author :
Abhay Wadhwa founded AWA Lighting Designers in 2002. Abhay has been intently and quietly focused on questioning the lighting zeitgeist ever since. Based in Brooklyn, NY, he works extensively with the world's leading architecture and design firms in the fields of commercial and mixed-use developments, urban planning, transportation, infrastructure, hospitality, and healthcare. He is an internationally-acclaimed keynote speaker, educator and author of numerous advanced light engineering and cultural lighting articles, and has worked with the United Nations Foundation on projects that address issues that marginalise many of the world's population. Most recently, he was asked to work with the Rural Haiti Project and Ethiopia's Mary Joy Aid Through Development to improve the infrastructure, and in turn the lives of its residents. He has also been referred to as the 'Poet of Light' by a Canadian journalist, and in lighter moments, he takes this title very seriously.

Review :
"Having worked in the fields of light, vision and consciousness over the past 45 years, I was deeply touched by Abhay Wadhwa's exquisite illustration of the use of light in the field of architecture. If a picture is a thousand words, then CONTEXTUALIZING LIGHT is a view of the universe - a feast for our eyes - a tapestry of sheer beauty created through the inspiration touching Abhay Wadhwa's artistry over the last 25 years. This book is gorgeous!" --Jacob Liberman Author of Luminous Life: How the Science of Light Unlocks the Art of Living "In works that span nearly two decades and several continents, AWA's each project expresses AWA's conviction that light informs and even creates experience, and that light itself is bound inextricably with form, space, volume, culture and human perception - the very stuff of architecture." --Thomas Vonier President of the International Union of Architects (UIA) "Over the years, AWA Lighting Designers has been an essential part of our creative process, and one of the most unique firms to work with in the industry. Their understanding of light as an art form that can be sculpted through shadow and nuance, rather than simply a utility, is why their collaboration on projects has made such an impact. Their use of technology as part of the design process has helped numerous design teams to both visualize the effects of lighting on space and research the effects on the human psyche." --Shawn Basler Co-CEO of Perkins Eastman "Such a pleasure to view and read Abhay"s new book, Contextualizing Light! I remember fondly Abhay as a confident young graduate student at the Lighting Research Center. His new book demonstrates what I had hoped he would do - continue a lifelong journey of learning and producing. What strikes me most about this book are the diversity and quality of the work. As the book title implies, the diversity of designs for different cultures and countries in context is extraordinary. Of course, as I expected, the quality of the images accompanied by his statements of philosophy show how deeply Abhay dives into each and every project. Fundamentally, Abhay hopes that lighting design will never become a cut-and-paste exercise, as is tempting with today's canned lighting design programs. Abhay pushes himself for excellence and it is clear he very much wishes his lighting design contemporaries would as well. This book may not affect them, but perhaps it will inspire the next generation of lighting designers to excel, in context." --Mark Rea, Ph.D. FORMER DIRECTOR & Professor of Architecture and Cognitive Sciences at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.