LINEAR LIGHTING IS EITHER the best new way to illuminate — or the worst. The difference comes down to your design. From 1950s neon-filled drive-ins, to 1970s fluorescent-lit offices, to 1990s fiber optics, to 2010s cheap LED tape light, linear lighting has been good, bad and ugly. Now it is essential.
I started my architectural lighting design career with a project in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Long since dismantled, the exhibit of rare timepieces held everything from a Pompeiian sundial to an atomic clock. Within the base of the sundial were multiple runs of the most cutting-edge linear lighting solution of the day: glass fiber optics. Their light slowly changed color and pulsed as the sundial rotated in its shortened 24-hour cycle. And buried into a carefully crafted steel channel along a slowly rising metal ramp was the other linear lighting solution of the era: linear low voltage festoon lamps.
Fiber optics were ridiculously expensive and tricky to install. Linear low voltage systems had thousands of tiny bulbs prone to burning out and leaving dark spots and famous for extreme electricity draw. But the exhibit looked pretty cool, and that was the point.
Today’s designer has a much broader palette of linear tools at their disposal and just as many new reasons to use them. Linear lighting goes beyond eye-catching details to enable the most progressive vision and wellness strategies.
We can effectively eliminate shadows on kitchen counters with linear lighting. We can illuminate entire spaces with zero glare with linear lighting. We can reduce the risk of falls for our elderly parents with linear lighting. We can trigger circadian responses with linear lighting.
We can clean up ceilings with linear lighting. We can make stone and brick and tile look their best with linear lighting. We can discretely illuminate traditional details with linear lighting.
In short, linear light can help us live happier and healthier lives. It can also be ugly and distracting. The difference? Technology . . . and design.
