Find out more about wallwashing
Putting walls to work with light
Use illuminated walls as a central element of your lighting design. Vertical light shapes the character of a space and makes architecture clearly legible. Deploy wallwashing selectively in the museum. This is how you stage artworks, reinforce orientation, and make key points easier to find. Expand spaces visually. Evenly illuminated walls create a sense of spaciousness, heighten the perception of brightness, and improve visual comfort. Emphasise surfaces with grazing light. Textures, reliefs, and materiality become visible and can be appreciated in all their quality. Define spaces through vertical illumination. It supports how a space is used, guides the eye, and helps visitors discover information quickly and easily.
Creating orientation with wallwashing
Use bright surfaces as visual points of orientation. On entering the museum, the eye is drawn first to the brightest surface and automatically ascribes significance to it. Stage information desks in front of brightly washed walls. They are then instantly recognisable as points of contact, and visitors find their bearings more easily. Bring out architectural axes. Wallwashing clearly reveals spatial directions, functional levels, and transitions. They lead to the exhibition, the reception, or other destinations. Illuminated walls give structure to large buildings and make important spaces intuitive to find. Create clearly defined entrance areas. In foyers, vertical illumination provides orientation, presence, and an inviting first impression.
Creating brightness with wallwashing
Use vertical surfaces to make spaces appear brighter. The foyer is unquestionably already part of the museum. At the same illuminance, illuminated walls create a far stronger impression of brightness than horizontal surfaces. So use wallwashing selectively. Because walls lie within the natural field of view, they shape the perceived brightness of a space. Pay attention to the reflectance of the surface. Light-coloured walls reinforce the impression of brightness particularly efficiently. Dark or rough materials require a higher illuminance to achieve an effect comparable to that of a white wall. Exposed concrete, for example, requires twice the illuminance of a white wall. Brick and dark timber even require six times the illuminance. With wallwashing you create bright, pleasant, and visually generous spaces.
