I spent an hour today at the granite knee of another - Tess Haygood - at Georgia Lighting.   She's the big dog on the porch nationally for dream home plan builders and even guys like me to layout residential lighting design for a dream home plan.  Among the trades with which Mrs. AG and I have worked over all these years, no trade has had more changes, more development than lighting.  You want to risk value, take a fast pass on residential lighting design.  You want to boost value and comfort and convenience, lean on a residential lighting design pro.  They do not abound on the fruited plain.  Stick around a residential lighting shop floor of size, and you'll spot one to a site - they're the go-to guru on the deck in any big-time residential lighting wholesaler and retailer if that wholesaler or retailer is attentive enough to hold onto them.  Without 20 or 30 or more years before the mast, they haven't been there, done that.  What an honor for me  to work with a consummate professional.  No hassle.  No rancor.  No ill will.  No unanswered questions.   No waffle.   No detail not worth addressing forthrightly and fully.  Can't wait to show you the nub of what you need to know.   May not tell you twice and the one time they tell you is fast and even near to furtive and furious, because their bar is high and their time is taught.   Passion about her work oozed all over our conversation.  Masterly competence and confidence prevailed.   When you are with the best, you know it - it all looks so easy and you know somewhere deep inside that what you witness is special, sifted and sorted down all the years, selected just for this one occasion with you, not what you're going to get again down the road.  I know those nuggets of time-tested truth.  Roll them out daily.  Some fundamentals of a practice are not in books, they're in scar tissue, and wrinkles, and regrets of paths not taken or cares not given or assumptions unmet or expectations unexpected, and memories of  witness to failures not forgotten.  I am humbled in the presence of virtually  unequivocal ability and capacity.  I glory in the presence of excellence expected as the norm, and excellence delivered seemingly without extra effort because that extra effort is the norm.  AG

AG went a-searching the world wide over for words and other ways to the effect of understanding in terms of the granite knee something about dream home plan residential lighting design and, especially, residential lighting design for aging eyes.  Like these guys on their way into Julian Beever's hole in a sidewalk artistry are about to find out, it's dark in there.

Dream Home Plan Standards Basics

1) Before The Architect is taking increasing interest in interior residential lighting design metrics, especially in residential lighting design for aging eyes

a) the majority of Before The Architect’s clients are mature, and mature individuals’ eyes as compared to eyes in youth or early- middle years

i) need more light

ii) need light presented differently

b) there is precious little guidance on this subject unless you scrounge and scrounge for accessible orts of information and insight (no pun intended)

c) the subject matter of lighting design is so over-intellectualized, nearly incoherent, and, seemingly, purposely tortuous sufficient to rewarm the innards of even your casual conspiracy theorist

2) AG created his own guidance system for residential lighting design of interiors for clients

a) rules

i) layer lighting design

ii) apply dimmer switches wherever possible

Comment: Lutron makes applying dimmer switches a whole lot easier than it used to be, including but not limited to 4-dimming involving every device in the gang.

iii) define illuminance

(1) on three levels

Comment: It’s ok to be approximate and not obsessive in this matter, so long as errs are to the high side and not the low side, noting AG’s read that a difference of 10 fc [you'll read about this term "fc" very soon} may not be ordinarily  observable to most folks.

(a) 40 foot candles or lumens/foot²

Comment: Let’s get a couple of aspects of lighting design settled completely and without wiggle-room.

Notes to Residential Lighting Design Schedule - Interior and Covered Porch

Lighting Design Highlights in an Electrical Plan, View

7) Let’s inspect this drawing for conformity to our lighting design standards

a) all but 2 wall switches are "D" for dimmer

b) switches between bath and bed (space to the left and above) are "L" for lighted

c) vanity lighting design is properly set at 66 linear inches over finish floor level and luminaires are spaced 30 linear inches apart and centered over the lavatories

d) the closet switch is pressure-sensitive, relieving occupants from excess visual and physical distraction in moving between spaces

e) foot candles (a/k/a lumens) are clearly identified by space, value, and type

f) distinction is clearly made that luminaires are illustrative, i.e., final choices of luminaire types, numbers, and sites are to be done by others whose day job it is to do so

g) centerlines are depicted for certain lighting design groups because AG and The Missus have abundant experience in observing how cock-eyed some luminaires get applied when left to mechanics

h) luminaire site (with notable exception), number, make, and model are really only defined in terms of minimum illuminance, and, as drawn, are explicitly illustrative

Comment: In the experience of both AG and The Missus, lighting design technology progresses more quickly than any other in the realm of residential design and custom home building. In other words, final layouts of lighting design have to be done by others for clients to get the greater benefit.

Comment: Since authoring this work, it's minorly but importantly amended in one respect; namely, that in task spaces, e.g., baths, kitchens, where ambient lighting design may be 70 fc, the proximate task area shall have not less than 40 fc illuminance on a standalone basis, i.e., even without the ambient lighting design in service.  In other words, all-on illuminance can be not less than 110 fc.