Sometimes, the most thoughtful decisions in a project are the ones whose presence we no longer notice.
A well-oriented opening, a depth of shade that offers protection without darkening a space, a route we can follow effortlessly, light that accompanies the way a place is used without dictating it. We readily acknowledge the quality of architecture, landscape and public space. And rightly so: such places are the product of collective intelligence.
Yet that very success can make the contribution of certain disciplines less visible.
Lighting design is particularly familiar with this condition. When fully integrated into a project, it can shape the very layout of a place: the design of floors, walls and ceilings, the proportions of a volume, the organisation of movement, materials, transparency, contrast and transitions. Its contribution may be conspicuous or discreet, but it is part of spatial and architectural design, by day and by night.
How, then, do we distinguish the contribution of the person who conceived these relationships? How do we recognise an expertise whose achievement sometimes lies precisely in not drawing attention to itself?
The question goes beyond a signature at the foot of a drawing. It concerns how we understand, organise and acknowledge the work of design.
Light does not begin when we switch it on
Lighting design is still too often associated with artificial lighting, its equipment and the nocturnal image of a place.
Yet its work may begin long before that.
The movement of the sun, the availability of daylight, the orientation of a building, the depth of a space, openings, solar shading and the reflectance of materials already contribute to shaping a luminous environment. These are not merely constraints to be measured afterwards. They inform architectural and spatial decisions, in dialogue with the other designers involved.
A daylight strategy may lead to a change in layout, preserve a view, reduce the need for artificial lighting or improve the balance between visual and thermal comfort.
Artificial light extends this thinking into different conditions. It must respond to uses, times, perceptions and needs that cannot be reduced to an illuminance level or the performance of a device.
Nor are the consequences of these choices solely visual.
Light plays a part in human health, comfort, alertness and biological rhythms. Certain temporal variations in artificial lighting, including flicker, may be associated with adverse effects such as headaches in sensitive individuals. Seasonal variations in daylight are also among the factors studied in relation to seasonal affective disorder.
Other living organisms are affected too. Light intensity, spectrum, direction, duration and timing of exposure can influence the behaviour and biological rhythms of many species, with potential consequences for habitats and ecological balances.
These relationships call for scientific knowledge that continues to evolve, care in interpreting findings and collaboration with relevant specialists. Above all, they remind us that the quality of a luminous environment cannot be judged by appearance alone.
Restraint in the use of light belongs to the same intelligence of design. It begins with understanding available resources and actual needs, before installations are sized or selected. It may mean providing more light where justified, less elsewhere, adjusting operating times or preserving darkness where it is needed.
There can be no universal answer to situations as different as a school, a street, a hospital, a garden, a monument or a transport infrastructure.
There is, however, one common imperative: understand before deciding.
One intention, many hands
A project is made by many people. This is one of its strengths, but also one of its challenges.
From initial intentions and studies to specifications, financial decisions, contractor consultations and construction, choices pass from one pair of hands to another.
A layout may change, a product be substituted, an integration detail disappear, a technical solution be selected without all its spatial, perceptual or environmental consequences being reconsidered.
Some changes are appropriate, sometimes even better than the original proposal. Others quietly undermine the balance that was sought.
What matters is keeping intentions and responsibilities legible as a project evolves, while enabling everyone involved to understand and develop its proposals together.
This becomes especially important when a professional’s intellectual contribution is not clearly identified.
Documents circulate, images are reused, solutions are passed on. A creation may be credited to the person who presents, sells or implements it rather than to the person who actually conceived it.
Copyright already protects certain original creations. Contracts define services and obligations. Yet the existence of these rights does not always resolve the practical difficulties of attribution, recognition or continuity of design.
The rapid development of digital tools and artificial intelligence brings another dimension to this question. A persuasive image can now be produced in very little time. On its own, it tells us nothing about the reasoning behind it, the expertise engaged or its maker’s ability to carry an intention through to built reality.
Mastering a tool, producing a representation and bearing responsibility for a design may be connected, but they are not the same thing.
This distinction matters to clients as much as to professionals. It helps them understand what they commission, what they assess and the expertise to which they entrust their projects.
An established profession, a recognition still to be examined
Lighting design has developed in France over several decades. Founded in 1995, the Association des concepteurs lumière et éclairagistes (ACE), the French association of lighting designers and lighting professionals, has contributed to the profession’s organisation and visibility through representation, publications and opportunities for professional exchange. Defining a professional status is among its longstanding objectives.
Alongside this, courses and various systems for recognising competencies have developed, notably the qualifications awarded to service providers by the Organisme de qualification de l’ingénierie (OPQIBI), the French engineering qualification body, and individual certifications registered in the Répertoire national des certifications professionnelles (RNCP), France’s national register of professional certifications. Their respective scopes must be distinguished.
Lighting designers already bear contractual responsibilities and, depending on their assignments and the applicable conditions, construction-related liabilities, including ten-year liability. They hold professional insurance and contribute to design and project-management teams.
It would therefore be inaccurate to portray this profession as lacking qualifications, obligations or responsibilities.
The question lies elsewhere.
How is this professional reality recognised by public institutions?
What would allow a client to identify an individual’s design expertise, independently of the company employing them, the product they represent or the commercial title they use?
How can we recognise the different routes through which this profession has historically developed, without confining it to a single educational path?
How can legitimate collaboration with industry be distinguished from a situation in which a commercial interest might influence a design decision?
And how can intellectual contributions be made identifiable within a collective work, without diminishing creative freedom or the expertise of other disciplines?
These questions deserve more than an immediate answer.
They call for examining what existing instruments actually provide, before deciding whether other measures might be useful.
What architecture can teach us
In this respect, the French Law of 3 January 1977 on Architecture offers a particularly instructive precedent.
It establishes the public-interest dimension of architectural quality and contributes to a professional framework combining qualification, protection of title, responsibilities and rules of practice.
This model cannot simply be transferred to lighting design. The two professions do not share identical fields of intervention, conditions of practice or responsibilities.
But its history raises a fruitful question: how can a design activity whose quality affects far more than the interests of its practitioners come to be treated as a matter of public interest?
Lighting design contributes to the quality of our surroundings, to how places are perceived and to their transformation. It informs decisions affecting health, uses, resources, heritage and living environments.
Its recognition deserves to be considered at that level.
A protected professional title could be one possibility. Qualification criteria, a public register, transparency requirements or a professional code of ethics could also be examined.
The task would be to determine which, if any, are truly necessary, useful and proportionate, taking account of existing mechanisms and the diversity of professional backgrounds.
Such a discussion should not seek to reserve every intervention involving light to a single profession. Architects, landscape architects, engineers, lighting designers, manufacturers and contractors each bring complementary expertise and bear their own responsibilities.
The aim is to make these competencies more legible, their contributions more fairly recognised and their collaborations stronger.
From research to public consideration
It is from this perspective that I undertook historical, professional and legal research into the recognition and appropriate regulation of architectural, urban and landscape lighting design in France.
This work examines how the profession took shape, the precedent set by the architectural profession, existing qualifications and different international models. It also explores competence, responsibility, independence, intellectual property and the attribution of creative work.
It leads to a proposal: to invite public authorities to consider launching an exploratory study into the official recognition of the profession and an appropriate legal framework for its practice.
Such a study could bring together the relevant departments responsible for Culture and Architecture and those responsible for Ecological Transition, involving professional organisations, clients and the disciplines concerned.
This research opens a discussion that would benefit from collective examination, bringing different experiences, knowledge and proposals into dialogue. Only through that process can the relevance of institutional recognition, and the forms it might take, be properly assessed.
Recognising the act of design
We know how to define an equipment’s performance, measure light levels, establish standards and assess the compliance of an installation.
Yet it is far harder to make visible the thinking behind those decisions.
Yet a lighting design project cannot be reduced to what it installs or displays. It involves a way of understanding a place, interpreting its needs, anticipating its transformations and proposing new relationships between space, time and living beings.
This contribution belongs to a collective work, but it should not disappear within it.
Recognising lighting design also means recognising that an intention can hold professional value before it becomes an item of equipment, a calculation or an image.
And that this value deserves to be identified, discussed, passed on and assumed.
For sometimes, the most significant lighting decision in a project is the one that will never be seen as such.
Marie-Ikram Bouhlel
Lighting designer, founder of Atelier dada
The ideas explored in this essay are supported by an exploratory research note filed with the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI), the French National Institute of Industrial Property on 18 October 2026. The full note is available in its original French version through the PDF linked below.
Exploratory research note — Recognition and appropriate regulation of the profession of architectural, urban and landscape lighting designer in France
Direct link to the original French research note (PDF).
© MI. Bouhlel, Atelier dada. All rights reserved.
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