Concerned that our modern environments are becoming too overlit and “disconnected”, Brice Schneider, Design Director at Nulty, offers a perspective shaped by nearly two decades of practice across several continents, inviting the lighting design community worldwide to reflect more deeply on this global phenomenon.

Light reveals, but shadow gives meaning. Somewhere in our pursuit of brightness, we have forgotten this. We flood our cities with artificial illumination, erase darkness from our interiors, and measure progress in lumens per watt. Light is clarity, we are told an enabler of safety, productivity, and visibility. But in this relentless pursuit of brightness, what have we lost?

Shadows are more than the absence of light. They shape depth, create rhythm, and bring texture to space. They offer contrast, making light more meaningful. They whisper of time’s passage, of morning stretching into noon, dusk dissolving into night. Yet, in our modern environments – overlit, sterile, and disconnected – we have sold our shadow, unaware of the price we would pay.

There is an old story about a man who made a terrible bargain. In Peter Schlemihl’s Remarkable Story, the 19th-century novella by Adelbert von Chamisso, a traveller trades his shadow for a bottomless purse of gold. At first, he revels in his fortune, until he realises what he has truly lost. Without his shadow, the world rejects him. People recoil, unable to trust a man without one. He becomes an outsider, unable to belong.

Traditionally, Schlemihl’s story is seen as a cautionary tale about wealth and social exclusion, but there is another way to read it. What if his loss of shadow represents something deeper? A disconnection not just from society, but from the natural world itself?

Like Schlemihl, we have made a bargain of our own. In exchange for the convenience of perpetual brightness, we have severed our relationship with the natural play of light and dark, warmth and coolness, presence and absence. We have created environments where time no longer unfolds naturally, where space feels flat, where the quiet drama of sunlight and moonlight has been replaced by static, mechanical illumination.

Schlemihl, desperate to reclaim what he has lost, spends years wandering in search of belonging. Perhaps, like him, we are beginning to realise that in selling our shadow, we have lost something essential something that can only be recovered by reconsidering how we design and experience light.

In recent years, the shortcomings of over-illuminated, rigidly controlled environments have become undeniable. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many to examine their surroundings more closely, exposing the discomfort of living and working in spaces that feel lifeless. The absence of natural rhythm, the gentle shifts of daylight, the presence of shadow, became impossible to ignore.

As we move forward, lighting must be rethought not only in terms of function but in terms of experience. Global sustainability initiatives such as the UN’s 2030 Agenda and the 2050 climate goals challenge us to rethink not just how much energy we use, but how light shapes our relationship with place, time, and wellbeing.

For too long, we have treated artificial illumination as a fixed commodity, something to be controlled and measured. But light in the natural world is never static. It shifts with the seasons, dances with the wind, softens under cloud cover, and transforms as the day unfolds. Yet, conventional lighting design has largely ignored this fluidity, enforcing a mechanistic, uniform glow rather than an illumination that breathes and responds to its surroundings.

Even recent efforts to create human-friendly lighting, designed to better support sleep cycles and wellbeing, remain limited. Most of these approaches focus only on daylight hours, overlooking the complexity of nocturnal illumination. Light at night is not just about visibility, it affects the behaviour of wildlife, the growth of plants, and the subtle interplay between light, air, and water.

But this is beginning to change.

Rather than treating light and darkness as opposing forces, we should embrace the in-between spaces – those liminal moments where light shifts, softens, and reveals the textures of its surroundings. These are the places where light is alive, changing not just with time, but in response to the world around it.

Inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s exploration of meaningful connections, this approach restores depth, emotional resonance, and harmony to environments, countering the sterility of static, overlit spaces. Light, like a storyteller, carries the memory of its journey from the way it filters through a dense forest canopy, to the way it glows softly against textured surfaces, to its quiet shimmer on water. These moments of connection create spaces that feel layered, immersive, and deeply human.

At the heart of this philosophy is the idea that less is more when used at the right time. Instead of flooding spaces with uniform brightness, light should emerge and recede, responding to the natural flow of the day and the needs of those who inhabit it.

The future of lighting should not simply be about meeting lux levels; it should be about intentionality, responsiveness, and context. It should recognise the role of environmental psychology: the way lighting influences mood, perception, and emotional connection to space. Just as music uses silence to give sound meaning, lighting should use shadow, contrast, and rhythm to bring depth to the built environment.

Lighting is not just functional; it is deeply emotional. The way a space is illuminated shapes how we feel within it – whether we experience a sense of warmth and intimacy or detachment and sterility. If designed thoughtfully, lighting has the power to enhance connection, guiding perception in a way that feels natural rather than imposed.

A more artistic, poetic approach to lighting could reshape our relationship with the night, communicating how and why certain lighting strategies evoke emotional responses. Instead of seeing darkness as a problem to be solved, we could learn to work with it, using soft glows, layered shadows, and patterned light to create visual transitions that reduce the need for excessive brightness.

Light should not dominate its environment; it should belong to it.

Patterned illumination, subtle shifts in texture and contrast can be more effective than sheer brightness in shaping perception, improving visual acuity, and reducing overall energy consumption. A well-placed glow can guide without overpowering. A thoughtful shadow can define space more effectively than a flood of light.

The goal is not just to see, but to experience.

For too long, we have treated light as something to impose upon the world. But light does not exist in isolation; it is shaped by its surroundings, transformed by what it touches. It moves, it breathes, it changes.

To reclaim our shadow is to recognise this; to understand that light is most beautiful, most profound, when it dances with darkness.

Rather than selling our shadow for the illusion of control, we should learn to embrace its presence, designing light that is not just functional, but poetic responsive, alive, and in harmony with the world it inhabits.

www.nultylighting.co.uk