American Uminary

Suzan Tillotson, thought leader and founder of the lighting design firm Tillotson Design Associates, talks to Metropolis about collaborating with architects, the pitfalls of LEDs, and persuading municipalities and the public to demand more sensible lighting schemes.

- Avinash Rajagopal

Avinash Rajagopal: You work with so many different architecture firms. Can you talk about what you bring to their projects?

Suzan Tillotson: We do work with some of the best architects in the world; it’s sort of daunting. They come to us with their vision, their projects. What we do, first off, is listen. We try to get to the essence of the architecture. What’s the real story?

Because the budgets are so challenging, maybe you can’t use the most expensive fixture, or it becomes a fluorescent strip light in the end. But there’s still that premise, the goal, the strong idea, of what the architects are trying to do. We try to be the police for that—we are the lighting police—and really try to hold on to the spirit.

The hardest part of lighting is predicting it. What’s “sparkle” to you might be “glare” to me. And like a painting, it’s not done until it’s done. That’s why it’s good to have long relationships with architects: because there’s a trust that’s built, and they know that we care. It’s a huge responsibility, and we know the architects are extremely dedicated to their work. It’s our job to make it what they envision, not what we envision.

AR: Tell us about your work on the recently opened Bloomberg headquarters in London, which was designed by Foster + Partners.

ST: That project was extremely unique in terms of the public realm. If you go to London, you see these beautiful heritage buildings with ugly streetlights mounted to them. The design of this building was so beautiful, the materials were so gorgeous, and we did not want that. That became one of our main goals.