Lighting Design in an Architect’s Office: IALD Tour at Gensler Los Angeles

Our own Archit Jain, who together with Bryan Klammer is the co-coordinator of the Southern California Chapter of the International Association of Lighting Designers, helped organize a presentation and tour of the new Gensler offices located in downtown Los Angeles.

Gensler’s offices are unique, at least in the American office landscape, where personal work spaces are somewhat minimized and multiple several collaboration spaces provide opportunities for interaction that enhances creativity. Gregory C. Nelson, IIDA from Gensler talked about the design philosophy of the project, and how the new space encourages interaction. Carlos Inclan, IALD, presented the lighting design challenges and thoughts, with the final project 30% better than the code requirements. Many times, concepts are diluted when projects move towards realization as initial ideas may need too much effort to complete. In this case, team effort and unwavering commitment to the goals were described as the key factors in the final result.

In addition to Greg, Matt Gammel, Valentin Lieu and Sabu Song from Gensler led small group tours of the space.

From a lighting design standpoint, it was great to see a space with most lighting integrated within the furniture systems, with lower ambient lighting and task lighting available at every station. As we move forward with higher energy costs, and stricter codes, we see this trend to continue.

The event was organized in association with the Illuminating Engineering Society Los Angeles Section and with support from Lutron, Tambient/Total Lighting Concepts and Performance Lighting Systems.

Thanks to Adam Lamar of Delray Lighting for taking great pictures of the tour.

Oculus is working with Gensler’s LA and Las Vegas offices on multiple projects, so we hope to spend some quality time here collaboratin’!