MR. KOJO NNAMDIYou're down in the Metro waiting for a train and you think to yourself, why is it so dark down here? And then you get to work and your office is bright -- too bright, lit up by the white glare of fluorescent lights. Well, if you're wondering where we're going with this, we're going to be talking about lighting today with architect and Washington Post columnist Roger Lewis. It's something we don't normally spend much time thinking about. But as the time change looms and we prepare to set our clocks back an hour, we all tend to suddenly realize that light can have a big impact on our quality of life. In this hour we'll be talking about the role lighting plays at home, at the office and in public spaces. Roger Lewis is an architect. He writes the Shaping the City column in The Washington Post. He is professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland. Roger, good to see you.

MR. ROGER K. LEWISNice to be here. Thank you.

NNAMDIWe all know people like to work in rooms that are almost dark, while other people seem to need as much light as they can get. Where do you stand? Are you someone who craves the light or the dark?

LEWISWell, I'm partial to light. But on the other hand -- and when I say light, I should say daylight. But I think that the issue of lighting as you've mentioned is sometimes not attended to adequately when we design buildings or for that matter when we design spaces outside of buildings.

NNAMDICan you hear yourself?

LEWISI'm only getting...

NNAMDIOh, in one ear. We'll take care of your earphones or your headphones pretty soon. But I understand that you have got some major pet peeves when it comes to lighting, including the use of lighting in public spaces.

LEWISWell, I think that lighting -- first of all, lighting does several things. I mean, it obviously enhances visibility. It makes things easy to see. But lighting enhances safety, particularly at nighttime in places like streets and drives and alleys. And lighting helps us find our way and also feel safe in parking garages. Lighting, obviously, is very useful when we're reading or when we're trying to see what it is that we're cooking or even more importantly, what we're eating in a restaurant. (laugh) And I -- one of my pet peeves is some restaurants so dimly lighted, where I'm not really sure whether I'm cutting the meat or my finger. (laugh)

LEWISSo I think lighting there -- lighting is an art form. In fact, there are people who are specialists in the design of lighting. And the other thing -- point I should make is that there's a lot of highly specialized lighting that really requires skill and artistry such as lighting in theaters, lighting in art galleries and museums and such.

NNAMDIWhat are your pet peeves when it comes to lighting? You can call us at 800-433-8850. Is it your office, your Metro stop, maybe the lighting on the street outside your house? Call us at 800-433-8850, or make a comment or ask a question at our website, kojoshow.org. You can also send us a tweet, @kojoshow. Parking garages are my favorite, Robert, because I -- I mean, Roger, because I tend to feel that, for some reason or the other, the people who designed the lighting in parking garages use professional muggers as consultants.

LEWISGood point. (laugh) Most parking garages are lighted by fluorescent lights, which often are very widely spaced. I'd say most parking garages -- and I'm talking about underground garages as much as above garages. It's all about money. I think that the approach that's taken is to see if we -- how little lighting can we get away with. And, unfortunately, you -- if you look at most parking garages, it's a very shadowy environment. There are places settled between cars, often between rows of cars, as well as side to side, there's very little lighting. If there's something lying on a piece of chewing gum down there, I'm gonna step on it because I'm not gonna see it. And this is independent of the issue of navigating in some garages where you're driving around looking -- where's the exit sign? Where's the exit sign? Which -- do I turn left or right here? I think, generally, most parking garages are inadequately illuminated.

NNAMDIYou know, it strikes me that one of the reasons why I feel this way about parking garages has to do with Watergate and the fact that Woodward and Bernstein always seem to meet Deep Throat in a parking garage some place.

LEWISYeah. Well, and I think everybody knows in many, many movies, the parking garages are the scene -- and television shows that involve crime and punishment and whatever. Car parking garages are the scene of questionable activities and threatening moments.

NNAMDIWell, you talked about restaurants being too dark on the one hand. On the other hand, our offices can be almost blindingly bright, and I know it can even give some workers headaches. Any thoughts on the best lighting to help keep workers productive, not to mention comfortable and happy?

LEWISWell, there -- lighting presents some design challenges. One of the most obvious one is glare. That is lighting that's configured so that you can only see -- or you see the light source or you see a very intense source of light such as a window in a place where you really don't want your eye to be looking, when you’re working, particularly, or reading or if you have a computer screen and reflections are showing up in a computer screen. So what, you know -- what architects and lighting consultants do -- they try and design -- if they're paying attention to lighting, the environment so that there is neither too much light nor too little light, and also that the -- ideally, the light is being -- is arriving at your eye after being bounced once or twice. What you usually want to avoid is a situation where you’re looking at directly at the source of the light, whether it's a window or a light bulb, a luminary that is invariably gonna blind you or is going to make a visual acuity less than it should be.

NNAMDILet's go to the phones. Here is John in Warrenton, Va. John, you’re on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOHNThank you. I'll tell you what my -- where my interest lies in this topic is at home because I'm restoring an 18th century manor house. And I would really like to optimize the effect of the architecture by installing light that do what I want them to do. And that -- to me that means create a mood. And what I really need is maybe a good book or a resource where I can learn the basics because I'm not gonna hire -- I'm probably not gonna hire somebody. I'm not gonna hire a consultant. It's not in the budget. And -- but it's very interesting because I find that lighting affects my mood. So that's all. I'll listen off the air. Thanks.

NNAMDIAnd you're talking to the right person because we've been to Roger Lewis' home and we know that he uses some architectural techniques, tricks, if you will, to bring natural light into his own home. So, Roger, what could you say to the caller?

LEWISWell, day lighting is great because day lighting is free. Day lighting means you don’t have to turn on electrical lights and, therefore, you can save energy and have a lower electric bill. I mean, there a lot of reasons, I think, to try and use daylight to provide as much of the ambient lighting. Ambient lighting meaning the lighting that just generally illuminates a space. The more daylight you can harvest and bring in to a house, whatever the room, the less electricity and less light bulbs you'll burn up, and especially nowadays when we're going to compact fluorescents, which are much more energy efficient but cost an arm and a leg to buy. That -- by the way that price is probably gonna come down over the next few years.

NNAMDIHopefully.

LEWISSo I think that if you're in an 18th century house, let's talk about the specifics of that because that's typical of a lot of houses, which is to say that you have rooms in which there are windows that are not the whole wall but rather, like the studio I'm sitting in, are punched openings, as we say in architecture. Punched openings in the wall, they -- and they do bring light into the space and certainly during the daytime, that's light that you wanna harvest and let in. But if it's -- if you like -- if you’re looking for a space that's even brighter than that, then you start having to make decisions about electrical illumination. And that's where in a traditional house, you probably wanna go with independent or autonomous light fixtures, that is floor lamps, as opposed to trying to rewire and put lighting on the ceiling or suspend lights from the ceiling.

LEWISThe -- in my own house, there's no question, at night, we have to turn on some lights because we can't harvest daylight. But a lot of my lights are recessed in the ceiling rather than hanging from the ceiling. They're on dimmer switches, a rheostat, which can -- which essentially reduces the current flow, so that -- two things happen, you can actually tune the space, so that you can make it as atmospherically desirable as you want. And if you put dimmer switches on lights in those 18th-century house or any other house, you -- your light bulbs will last much, much, much longer. We almost never -- I'd say almost all of our electrical lights are on dimmers, and we rarely replace the bulbs.

NNAMDIHere is Daphne is Kensington, Md. Daphne, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DAPHNEHey. Thank you, Kojo. Actually, I have a question about recessed lights, maybe a little more information. I have a 20th-century house. And I wanna put to some recessed lights in my living room. I understand some of the fixtures are not very energy-efficient. They let heat and air conditioning go out to your ceiling. So I'm wondering if your guest can give me some specific, either brand names or websites or local companies, where I -- where they can give me good advice or unless you can give me the brand names of energy-efficient recessed lights. And also the difference in a compact fluorescent versus halogens. Does halogens give you brighter lights or to focus fixtures and the light -- energy efficiency but also to provide nightlights.

NNAMDIEnergy-efficient recessed lighting, Roger.

LEWISWell, recessed lighting -- remember, there are two components to the light -- to a light fixture whether it's recessed or surface mounted, as we say, or a lamp. There's the actual fixture itself -- the structure in the case of a recessed light. We often call them cans. They can be shaped differently. But there is this -- the fixture. And there is the light bulb, the actual source of the light that goes into the fixture. So you -- and I'm not gonna recommend a particular brand, because I don't know enough about all the brands currently on the market. What I suggest you do is go to a lighting store. And there are some lighting stores in the Washington area. And they can show you what's available and advise you on fixtures and, for that matter, you will need an electrician to install them.

LEWISBut on the bulb, the light source itself that might go into your recessed fixtures, there, you have some options. I mean, obviously, you can put a compact fluorescent up there. It will lasts a long time. It will be energy-efficient. It may or may not give you the color, you know, one of things people -- we haven't talked about is the color. How blue or yellow or red or pure white light sources. And, for example, halogen lights will give you a very intense bright light. They're very -- they're fairly energy-efficient. And the halogen lights will give you a lot of light for the wattage, but they're also produce heat. They get very hot. I can attest to that by the number dead insects that are sitting on top of one of my halogen floor lamps. As soon as they touched it, they're zapped.

LEWISYou have a choice of bulbs, in other words, that you can put in your recessed fixtures. I think going to a lighting store and talking to the -- somebody who knows what they're talking about in a lighting store, will get you what you want. Remember, too, of course, to install recessed fixtures, you've got to punch holes in the ceiling and you've got to get wiring to it and you've got to get wiring to a switch. So there are some other costs and complications with retrofitting a house for a recessed lighting.

NNAMDIDaphne, thank you very much for your call. Good luck to you.

DAPHNEThank you very much.

NNAMDIHere's David in Bethesda, Md. David, you're turn.

DAVIDYes, hi. I would like to ask about the lighting in the Metro Stations. In Gallery Place, where I frequently go, it is so dark that I've thought about wearing one of these camping headlights, so that I could actually even read...

NNAMDINavigate.

LEWISYou've must have seen my cartoon. (laugh) I wrote an article about Metro lighting...

NNAMDIYeah.

LEWIS...a few weeks back. And that is exactly the cartoon I drew for the Shaping the City column. It shows a guy reading something and he's got a miner's hat with the lamp on it.

DAVIDThat was great.

LEWISSo it's been -- your idea...

NNAMDIAnd Roger draws his own cartoons, by the way. (laugh)

LEWISI -- yes. And you may be able to even find that in the Washington Post archive. No, Metro lighting -- I have to confess. I have been a consultant to Metro years -- a few years ago, on lighting. They were very concerned about the light levels on some of the mezzanines. The Metro lighting is a real challenge because the basic lighting scheme that was devised by Harry Weese and his colleagues way back in the '60s is one we much appreciated. It's indirect. The light washes over -- you don't see the light sources. It washes over the vaults. It creates a certain ambiance that I think a lot of people do like. But what has happened, and has always been the case, is that it results on a lot of places in the Metro system just not having enough light under the mezzanines, on top of the mezzanines, places that where you trying to read -- even the station signs that are posted along the vaults. Some of them are not easily read.

LEWISI can't tell you how many places I've been. I was at Union Station recently. And they were -- it was really dark. I mean, it was -- I know earlier Kojo was talking about safety in Metro. I mean, there are places there where I suspect some people don't even feel particularly safe, just because it is under lighted. It's well known. There've been research studies that show that one of the things that can do -- be very effective in increasing public safety is nighttime lighting, whether it's in the Metro or in a garage or on the street.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call.

DAVIDYeah, there's one follow up I would also add with regard to the question that the other lady was asking about installing recessed lights. And they now have these LED bulbs that are fairly expensive. But I have read that the color tone of them has not really been worked out. There is something called the green band or something that it doesn't quite use the spectrum well. I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

NNAMDIAnd, David, when you get off the air to take your answer, listen to Rick, who is our next caller, because it's my understanding that Rick sells lighting and have some suggestions about recessed lighting. So thank you for your call, David.

DAVIDGreat.

NNAMDIAllow me, Roger, to go directly to Rick in Washington, D.C. Rick, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

RICKYeah. I just wanted to say with the LED lighting, the technology has gone a long way. You can get all the color temperatures. You can make it look like incandescent, you know, 3,000k, 35,000, 4,000, so they can give you any effect that you want. They're now dimmable, so things have come a long way. And for the recessed lighting, you can just get a retrofit that would fit pretty much any can. Anywhere from, like, 70 to $100, and that's just about an average price for, you know, your homeowner.

NNAMDIOkay. Thank you very much for your call. Roger, do most architects think about lighting from the architect's perspective? What role does lighting play in the designs?

LEWISWell, it varies. It varies. Actually, before I answer it, let me make sure...

NNAMDISure.

LEWIS...your knows what -- LED stands for light emitting diode.

NNAMDIYes.

LEWISAnd the beauty of these little light bulbs is they can engineer them, as the caller just said, to emit almost any color of the spectrum they can be strung out. I suspect that in a few years, LED will become affordable to the point where it becomes a commonly used fixture. As -- now, the answer is this. I think writing -- I think architects are inconsistent in how they pay attention to lighting. I think some architects pay a lot of attention to it. And mostly, they tend to focus on manipulating daylight, on making dramatic moves where daylight or -- and using the sun. We haven't talked about how the sun can be used both to provide light and also to help deal with energy matters.

LEWISBut there are some architects and builders for that matter and others who pay very little attention to it. I -- you know, we don't rigorously study lighting in architecture school. We tend to rely as a profession on consultants, particularly electrical engineers who tend to layout all the power and electrical systems of buildings, including the lighting. I mean, I -- office buildings, for example, very typically, the lighting -- the general overhead fluorescent lighting, as we see right here in this studio -- has really been laid out by an electrical engineer in an office of engineers. And I won't even talk about the composition and whether they're in the places they should be. That's the -- that often tends to be done by these engineering consultants and not by the architects.

LEWISOn the other hand, there are some architects, and I'm among them, who actually pays a lot of attention to lighting, and I'm not bragging. It's just that I really believe that lighting is an important component of architecture. So I think it's a mixed report. I think there's all kinds of architects who some who do and who don't pay attention to it.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Roger Lewis on lighting. If the phone lines are busy, shoot us an e-mail to kojo@wamu.org or send us a tweet, @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt's a conversation about lighting with Roger Lewis. He's an architect and he writes the Shaping the City column for The Washington Post. He's also professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park. Another of your pet peeves, Roger Lewis, addresses on buildings not lit.

LEWISYeah. I can't tell you how many times I've cursed when looking for -- at night, or for that matter in the daytime, but at night in particular. Looking for a place that I don't know and I'm looking for an address and you can't see it. There's just -- it's not illuminated or street names at intersections not illuminated. You hope your car light beams will hit it. But it seems to me that both for people like us who are going visiting, but also for first responders in emergency situations such as fire, firemen and police, we really ought to think about the -- insisting that people, they post their address in a place that's visible and be -- make sure it's -- some illumination is falling on it at night.

NNAMDIThese days, I'm guessing that higher quality windows make this less of a problem, and you now want to have more natural light so you can save money on electricity. Talk a bit about using natural light to be more eco-friendly and for other purposes.

LEWISWell, one of the most commonly used strategies for making buildings carbon-neutral to both use and emit less carbon is, as we mentioned later, harvesting daylight and sunlight, as opposed to using electric lighting to illuminate the interior of a building. And again, this comes into play in designing the building, in determining the geometry, the orientation, how do you -- what do you do on the north side versus the south side, the east side versus the west side of a building to accomplish that, to let -- for example, to let the sun in, in the winter when you would like the sun to get in and you like the heat the sun provides, versus the summer when you wanna find a way to shade the summer sun to keep it from getting inside the building. And that has a lot to do with how you design the geometry of the building. It has a lot to do with how you shape the windows, whether they have projections, whether it's a roof or a louvered shading device over the window so that you let the summer sun in and you keep -- let the winter sun in, excuse me, and keep the summer sun out.

LEWISAnd I think the -- again, architects pay a lot of attention to that. Even now, in office buildings, for example, they will install what's called a light shelf with a window wall facing the street in order to bounce light farther into the interior of the building. They can actually put a horizontal shelf, in effect, at, say, 6 1/2 feet above the floor, with another two or three feet of glass above that, which then acts as a reflector bouncing the light off the ceiling and making the light, the sunlight or the daylight, penetrate further into the building, all of this, again, to maximize the use of daylight for illumination and reduce the amount of electric lighting necessary.

NNAMDIWe got this e-mail from Micaleen (sp?), who says, "I've just been complaining to my husband about the outdoor lighting at our condo community. It's a large community, and, at night, there's not one dark patch anywhere in or around the community. Even the woods are flooded with ambient light. It's disconcerting and makes me feel for the nocturnal animals trying to go about their business during the wee hours. Aside from them, isn't darkness required for restful sleep and melatonin production?" Roger, talk, if you would, about lighting our communities at night. It's an issue. It's not just about the look of our neighborhood. It's also a public safety issue. But can we be too much?

LEWISYou know -- well, I -- yeah. I mean, you could -- there's no question there can be too much light, just like there can be too much noise. No, I think that's a good observation. I think that probably most listeners would say that places they know are probably under-lighted rather than over-lighted. But there's no question you can overdo it. And especially, as she points out, as the writer -- I don't know if it's a she or he -- points out, there's certain places where you really want to avoid over-illumination because of its effect either on animals or, for that matter, the open windows of your neighbor. I mean, I think that there is -- there are people who are probably annoyed periodically because somebody near them has got a light on or something going on that's shining in their windows and they're forced to resort to pulling the shades or closing the blinds. I'm particularly sensitive of that since I have a house in which I don't have any shades or blinds on our window. Now we're surrounded by a lot of trees, you know.

NNAMDIThis is true. Here now is Betty in Rockville, Md. Hi, Betty.

BETTYHello, Kojo. First of all, I wanna let you know that I listen to you all the time. Matter of fact, I'm a real NPR lover. However -- and I listen to what he had to say -- has to say about indirect lighting. Well, we've done all of that with the skylights and everything, and it really works. However, I am very concerned about the fact that our streets are so dark. There are street standards, but they're not turned on. On the Beltway, it's the same way. And why is that?

LEWISWell, that's (laugh) -- it's a good question. I -- no, there are many places as I -- my wife, in particular, comments frequently when we're driving around that certain streets are not lighted adequately. I -- unfortunately, a lot of this has to do with money.

NNAMDIAnd jurisdictions.

LEWISJurisdictions, yeah. I mean, I think that we have probably been less than diligent as a society to ensure that public rights of way -- in particular, public streets -- are adequately lighted. And of course, as we know, there's some places that are really dangerous, where there are curves or blind -- things coming near this -- coming close to the road that make it difficult to see what might be coming and crossing your path. I think -- no, it's never -- it's not studied systematically as it should be by jurisdictions. But I think the answer any politician will give you as well, you're right, you're right, but we just don't have enough money to go around and do all the illumination we should do on the streets.

NNAMDIBut there are some cities that seem to be beautifully lit at night. Producer Tara Boyle thinks of Paris in particular in that regard. Are there any cities that you think do lighting really well?

LEWISWell, I can't -- I don't know that -- I can't think of anything where I would generalize about the whole city. Certainly, Washington, there are -- or many of the streets in the downtown sections of Washington, which I think are fairly lighted, where there's adequate lighting, and where you can see where you're going and what's going on. There are places in downtown Silver Spring and Bethesda that, I think, are -- where they have -- especially places where they have been revitalized in recent decades where the lighting is reasonably well done. As to a whole city, nothing comes to mind, but I think more of parts of cities where the lighting is better than other parts.

NNAMDITara just likes Paris, that's all. Here's Mark…

LEWISWell, I...

NNAMDIYou know that.

LEWIS...can't argue with that.

NNAMDIHere's Mark in Herndon, Va. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARKHi. Two comments or one comment, one question. When we're doing my basement, I had them install a significantly amount more lighting than the builder was recommending -- and I was redoing an existing basement -- to about two times the amount. And what I do to keep down the energy usage is when I'm, you know, generally using them, I'll unscrew about half the light bulbs there, you know, can -- ceiling mounted light. And when I need them, I'll screw them back in -- they're all on dimmer switches -- so that way my basement isn't dark and scary like so many are.

MARKFrom a question standpoint, there are products out there, things like solid tube and other things that bring down little tubes of natural light from the roof and outside, you know, to get them down. And I'm wondering if those -- have you found those to be effective, and is there energy efficiency issue with those letting -- since they're acting like a chimney and letting heating and cooling out of the house?

LEWISI've never installed those many -- you're talking about light -- piping light -- light pipes. And I suspect the cost of the light pipe, which essentially a kind of fiber optic device, only it's larger and moves a lot more light in. I suspect the cost -- and the installation cost, probably is prohibitive compared to doing what you're doing, which is to have some light fixtures and some dimmer switches and turning them on. We should probably suggest that you can do things like put motion detecting switches that often now, in things like schools, we will install switches which are -- which do -- keep the lights off unless there's somebody in the room. And you -- if you walk into the room, the lights come on and if you walk out of the room, the lights go off. It's a kind of toggle switch sensitive to motion.

LEWISI think the -- I think there's probably -- the notion of piping light, I don't think that its time has come. Although, again, I have designed some buildings where I have harvested light through a skylight quite high up and bounced it around a couple of times off of white surfaces to get down to a space or into a space that doesn't directly look outside. That certainly can be done very cost effectively.

NNAMDIThank you for your call, Mark. Roger, how do the lights we use affect what we actually see in a room? If the lights have a blue tint versus a yellow tint, it can affect one's whole impression of the environment.

LEWISYeah. Well, that's -- that again is well known. The color light -- the light spectrum affects how you see things because there's an interaction between light and the surface it's bouncing off of. So if you shine -- if you're in a room that is -- has red light in it and you look at a lipstick, the lipstick will look white. It will look colorless. It will -- so we know that the color, the chromatic quality of light affects the -- what you perceive in terms of the colors of the environment in which you said. And, of course, designers use this all the time to achieve effects that they wanna achieve. And again, it's a matter of -- I think if you're getting into really refined design, bring in an expert on this who can tailor, who can tune the environment using both the materials of the environment and their colors and the lighting color to do the job.

NNAMDIGot two e-mails. One from Meg and one from LCC, both on Metro lighting. Here's what Meg writes. "Why is the lighting so dim in the Metro? Was this done intentionally? Does it calm the travelers? Or is it a design flaw? I'm rather new to Washington and used the Metro often. I am very surprised to find the Metro so dimly lit and find it disconcerting. I would have thought in the light of recent events relating to the Metro, enhanced illumination would be of paramount importance in order to improve security."

NNAMDIAnd then there's this from LCC in College Park. "I like the Metro lighting. The underground station lighting is subdued but not dark. I think the lighting design is clever and that the general illumination fixtures are mounted at ground level pointing upward so that the underground station is illuminated with indirect light reflected off the ceiling rather than harsh direct light." We only have about a minute left.

LEWISWell, the second one answered the first.

NNAMDIYes.

LEWISI mean, that was wonderful, a juxtaposition. I mean, that's -- it was intentional. There's no question. It was intentional. It was done for an atmospheric objective that people who ride Metro are familiar with. I think that there are more localized places in the system where the lighting is inadequate. That is places like below the mezzanines or near these turnstiles or they're just -- there are moments in that system where the lighting is inadequate. I don't think you need to change the lighting of the vaults.

NNAMDIRoger Lewis, he is an architect and the columnist of the Shaping the City column for The Washington Post. He is professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park. Roger, always a pleasure.

LEWISLikewise. Thank you very much.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.