| | |  | Renewable Energy | Home » » Residential Lighting: A Practical Guide to Beautiful and Sustainable Design | | | | | | | Description: | | "Written by internationally recognized lighting consultant Randall Whitehead, this popular easy-to-read lighting design guide offers a highly visual introduction to the fundamentals for illuminating the single-family home. Emphasizing the use of "light layering" he advocates using a combination of lighting sources to create a cohesive and versatile lighting system. The book offers advice on design tools and room-by-room lighting strategies. This Second Edition includes a new chapter on how to implement the use of energy efficient lighting design, including updated information on LED lamps, CFL's and daylightng. Also included are 32 pages of color plates demonstrating professional remodels of interior and exterior rooms; including contributions from interior designers, architects, landscape designers in collaboration with well integrated lighting design". | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Randall Whitehead | | Hardcover:
| 304 pages | | Publisher:
| Wiley | | Publication Date:
| December 22, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0470284838 | | Package Length:
| 10.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.4 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 20 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Good lighting design guideJul 10, 2010
We're building a house. We'd been working with a house planner on the floor plan for several months. Once the basic floorplan was settled, we needed to lay out the electrical plan. I'm an electrical engineer, a registered professional engineer in Texas; I thought this task should be a piece of cake. :o)
I visited local (large chain) home improvement centers, looking for some guide books. I found Code Check Electrical for NEC rules but there were no books that covered lighting to my satisfaction. I needed something to help me with the do's and don'ts of lighting, the latest trends in lighting, and to do so on a room-by-room basis, with lots of examples.
Let me make it very clear: this is not a "coffee table" picture book. This is a design guide. There are a few color pictures in the middle of the book but most of the illustrations are black and white drawings that illustrate the design principles.
There are explanations of color temperature, color temperature suitability for different rooms and functions, the importance of layering ambient light with task and accent lighting, recommendations for luminaires around bathroom mirrors, the latest trends including dimmable CFLs and LEDs, etc, etc., etc., with lots of "don'ts" throughout.
The book describes California's Title 24, the holy grail of lighting efficiency standards, which requres dimmers in just about every room and/or fluorescent or LED lamps.
I had made a stab at the electrical plan before buying this book. After reading the book for a week, I changed about 30% of my original plan. Without this book, I would have made several mistakes in my lighting design.
The one area I had hoped to see in the book is integration of ceiling fans (with or without luminaires) into lighting plans. The book makes no mention of ceiling fans. I live in Texas, ceiling fans are a necessity here.
There are a few grammatical errors in the book; no spelling errors to speak of. A small part of the subject matter is repeated in multiple sections but that just helps each section stand on it's own. For example, the author might mention a certain type of luminaire that works well in both the living room section as well as the master bedroom section.
Luminaire: that's a fixture. And 'light bulbs' are 'lamps'. If you read this book and you're in the middle of a design project (as am I), you'll find you have added a few words to your vocabulary.
Buy this book if you're a lighting designer or if you're trying to become one, even if it's for your own home remodel or new build. If you're only looking for a book with pretty pictures of building interiors (a "coffee table" book), look elsewhere.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Perfect for me as an interested amateurMar 15, 2010
For me as an interested amateur decorator it's perfect. I can't judge how much it would teach a formally trained professional. Obviously lighting, as well as our awareness of the importance of good light is changing rapidly. Where I had scattered knowledge and intuition before I now have a good comprehensive catalogue of options and thoroughly explained confirmations of my intuition, as well as development of others, and a good deal of inspiration.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Great BookFeb 02, 2010
Great book. Required for school and has some great practical real world information on lighting for the design professional. This will be a keeper for future reference while on the job.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Very useful, but not sufficient aloneNov 01, 2009
I am building a large new home and bought this book to understand and develop a lighting plan. It provided a lot of useful information and was enjoyable to read. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars was that I found the author really trying to push his "green" agenda of using compact fluorescent instead of incandescent lamps (bulbs). That would have been fine if he pushed it but represented the facts fairly regarding both. There is very little information in the book on "color rendering index" which is how a light source allows you to perceive colors. I find it hard to believe that the author does not understand the importance of this, or if he does, why he chose to devote so little information to it. Perhaps it is because that is the one area where incandescant is far superior to fluorescent, having a CRI (color rendering index) of 100.
Even so, I am still happy that I purchased the book and found it useful but, I think you must get another book with this, or you will have important gaps in your lighting information. I highly recommend "The architecture of light" by Sage Russell. He gives much more detail on the different lamps and the actual science of how light works. He also explains color rendering index and its importance.
Bottom line, this book is great if you can afford another book along with it to fill in the gaps.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
An exceptional guide from a lighting consultant with over 25 years experienceJun 16, 2009
RESIDENTIAL LIGHTING: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BEAUTIFUL AND SUSTAINABLE DESIGN tells how to use 'light layering' using a range of lighting sources together. Room-by-room lighting tips and techniques accompany expanded chapters on energy-efficient lighting offering solutions to common lighting challenges, making for an exceptional guide from a lighting consultant with over 25 years experience.
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