The interview with Kama Wybieralska appeared
in A&B 1'2021
Light designer and product designer, founder of the light design studio aureola.studio. After studying product design and visual communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and light design at Parsons The New School of Design in New York, she began working at the prestigious light design studio L'Observatoire International in New York, where she had the opportunity to work with studios such as OMA and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. In 2017, she co-designed the first series of lamps for the Richard Meier Lights brand. Opened by Kama Wybieralska in 2020, the Warsaw-based studio works with light at various scales - from large-scale architectural and landscape illumination, museums, office spaces, private residences and stage sets to light installations and custom lamps.
Anna Walewska: Kama, it's not like the light just needs to be turned on or off?
Kama Wybieralska: Even for that you have to design it first.
Anna: All right, but after all, we have an overhead light and a bedside lamp.
Kama: Well, yes, that's how it is in most homes, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Anna: What does your profession consist of?
Kama: Light design depends on architecture. An architectural light designer should know how to bring out and emphasize the qualities of a given interior or exterior. The idea is to know how to reflect this light from different surfaces, compose it into architectural details. By operating with light, we emphasize or hide specific elements in the space.
Anna: So we limit ourselves?
Kama: We can still hang an ornamental lamp in the middle of the room if we want to, but it should serve a decorative function or at least be one of many lighting layers. Having only one light source in a space makes the light flat. A thoughtful lighting design should have multiple layers, plans - like in a photograph or painting.
{Image@url=https://cdn.architekturaibiznes.pl/upload/galerie/56048/images/original/030070888e95ab97dce8a68faa00f3e4.jpg,alt=Endless Tunnel, New Station, Pruszkow,title=Endless Tunnel, New Station, Pruszkow}
Endless Tunnel, Nowa Stacja, Pruszkow, light installation project: Kama Wybieralska, 2018
the main idea of the project was to visually widen the narrow corridors in the building and add an extra dimension to them; this was achieved by creating mirrored installations that appear to be tunnels that curve behind the walls of the building; one set of mirrors was designed to visually connect two floors and two sets that curve behind the wall on each floor
© Kama Wybieralska
Anna: Light has great power. It makes us see colors, shapes... We are aware that it influences how we ourselves look. Can it influence a space?
Kama: Yes, undoubtedly light can make us look bad. Light of poor quality or set at the wrong angle can give uninteresting results. Poorly set light can make every imperfection on our face show, make us look worse than we really are, and this affects our mood. You go to the bathroom with such a light, see yourself in the mirror and... you can break down. Often we don't even realize it. The light affects us so much that we want to be somewhere or go somewhere. When I came back to Poland from the States, the worst thing was on dates - in fact, whenever my partner and I went to a restaurant, I would ask the waiters if they could dim the lights, so my boyfriend would look at me puzzled. More often than not, he ended up having to switch places with me, it made no difference to him, it only heightened the surprise. Now he is the first to comment on the light in a room, he has become really picky.
Anna: What you are talking about, in my opinion, requires having a special sensitivity. Many people won't even pay attention to it. That makes lighting a category of aesthetics?
Kama: Of course. I also think that once you start paying attention to certain things, then you do it constantly. If you want to, you can learn to do that. Each of us has slightly different eyes, we have a different number of various receptors, which makes us perceive things differently. Daltonists, for example. In old age, we stop seeing certain colors and are less sensitive to light. Older people need stronger light. Sometimes you see a woman with purple hair... she may not even know she has purple hair. In older people, often the lens in the eye begins to yellow and they stop seeing purple.
Light installation V = s_t, Nowa Stacja, Pruszkow, light installation design: Kama Wybieralska, 2018
The installation consists of two light sculptures in the entrances to the Nowa Stacja center; the form was inspired by the station and movement; the neon circles create three-dimensional corridors, and the pulsating light gives them a dynamic character
© Kama Wybieralska
Anna: Our conversation opens my eyes to how vast a field light design is. How many different aspects - from design, architectural, to aesthetic and functional issues, to those related to optics or biological processes - you have to consider in your work.
Kama: Yes, there is also the issue of feeling safe in the city. We don't think about it, but it's the lighting on streets, paths and alleys that affects our sense of safety in the city at night. This is important especially for women.
Anna: I remember a difficult experience for me traveling by car in Switzerland in the passenger seat. We were moving between cities, and there is actually no lighting at all along the roads there. It was completely dark. Even though I was in the car and driving on the main road, I was not comfortable. The complete opposite is New York, for example, where in many places the lights are on even during the day. I guess that's not environmentally friendly?
Kama:Electric light is very invasive to nature. In cities you can rarely see the stars - there is a glow over the city that is created from electric light. Nowadays we are paying more and more attention to this phenomenon, called light pollution. There are guidelines on how to try to combat it. Of course, you need to use as little electric light as possible at night. If you do decide to use it, it should be aimed exactly at the place it is supposed to illuminate, preferably downward. Electric light also affects the diurnal cycle of animals that live near cities, the rate at which trees shed their leaves, sometimes trees lit by a strong street lamp shed their leaves later. We ourselves are attacking our endocrine system by looking at our phone screen, which sends us that specific blue light. There are a lot of topics that we overlook when inventing various modern conveniences. Happily, we are now increasingly turning to energy-saving lighting, or led lighting, where possible, and we have warm-toned evening filters on our phones. We are trying to correct mistakes.
Anna: Let's go back to architecture. What matters most to you in this case when designing light for a space?
Kama: Materials are very important - their ability to reflect light is key. It is rarely pointed out that if a room has a dark floor, it will be dark too, because light has no way to reflect off that surface. And the floor is a very important surface. It is large in proportion to the interior and how it reflects light is of great importance.
DOM Z, Zalesie, design: STOPROCENT Architects, lighting: Kama Wybieralska, 2018
The lighting design assumes a visual connection between the house and its surroundings also in the evening; the use of surface lighting on the terrace will prevent the "mirror glass" effect - generally found in houses with large windows;
thanks to balanced levels of lighting inside and outside, home users will be able to enjoy the view outside not only during the day, but also at night
© STOPROCENT Architects
Anna: Stone, wood or plastic?
Kama: Each material has its own properties and you can use them in different ways. If you bounce light on wood, you will have a very nice, warm, soft feeling. And if you shine light on white marble, the effect will be completely different. It all depends on what kind of effect you are looking for and what you need for the place and situation.
Anna: Have you always known that you wanted to be a light designer?
Kama: That is a good question. I don't know if it has always been. I always knew I wanted to design. When I started designing, I knew I wanted to do small architecture or urban interventions. I always had lamps in my mind. When I got to the light design major, I already knew I wanted to design light. I think it was a process.
Anna: How did this process begin? What is the first thing you designed?
Kama: It was a lamp.
Anna: Really?
Kama: Yes, in addition to things that were imposed. I first studied design. There I mainly designed lamps or larger artistic interventions or sculptures. Later I started studying just light design. There I designed light installations or lamps, or everything together. That was always within my interests.
Anna: You are a graduate of an exceptional university. Surely this place had an influence on you.
Kama: Yes, I studied design at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and in New York at the Parsons School of Design light design in architecture.
Anna: Can you pinpoint what the New York experience brought to your design thinking?
Kama: Certainly there I learned all about the properties of light. How light interacts with different materials, what can be hidden and what can be exposed thanks to it, what type of lighting should be used in what place. A different light for a hospital, for a restaurant, and another for a home. The fact that there are so many different possibilities is not so obvious. It's hard to explain why a particular light will be good for you at a particular time, because it's intangible. When explaining, you have to use references to things that are known. We also do a lot of visualization and work on references.
Al Sadd SPA, Doha, Qatar, realized in collaboration with Boris Kudlička with Partners, 2019
© Piotr Łabęda
continued conversation on next page
