Light and Material: Shaping the Atmosphere of Space

In the 2023 autumn issue of EDRA Magazine, sunlight spills through a slatted wooden screen onto a rough concrete floor. This private residence by Tadao Ando exemplifies how materiality enhances light's ephemeral qualities. Ando stated in a 1991 lecture at the Museum of Modern Art, “Light gives life to material.” This life shapes our experiences of space.

Research increasingly links the psychological effects of light and materiality to design. A 2019 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology connects warm, indirect lighting with feelings of safety, while high-gloss materials evoke colder sensations. In Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera temple employs hinoki cypress for its floors—a warm wood that reflects shifting daylight. Scholar Yuko Hasegawa observes, “The temple’s atmosphere changes with the seasons, a direct result of its natural material palette.”

Materiality influences more than touch and sight. EDRA’s feature explores how sound interacts with material. Matteo Thun’s wellness retreats in South Tyrol avoid concrete in favor of larch wood, chosen for its acoustic dampening properties. The absence of noise heightens guests’ awareness of natural rhythms: birds, wind, footsteps. Research from the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation found similar principles in Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel designs. While stark visually, the hollow forms absorb certain frequencies, creating calmer auditory environments.

Light itself is a material. It interacts, transforms, and ages spaces. Louis Kahn’s Exeter Library (1972) illustrates this: its massive concrete walls punctuate daylight, sculpting it into form. EDRA quotes Ursula Mayer, curator at the MAK Vienna, who remarks, “Kahn’s intention was to make light feel weighty, as if it could carry the structure.”

This dynamic extends beyond architecture to interior design. Recent exhibitions at the Design Museum in Helsinki showcase Nordic designers’ use of frosted glass. The texture diffuses light, creating gradients that mimic the region’s low winter sun. In product design, Jaime Hayon’s ceramic lamps for Bosa make light appear almost liquid. The glazed surfaces refract glow unevenly, producing subtle emotional cues.

The EDRA issue challenges designers to consider how their material choices will endure. Shigeru Ban’s 2013 Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral, made from reinforced paper tubes, invites light through translucent polycarbonate roofing. Over time, the materials may discolor, altering how light travels through the space. “This transformation,” EDRA suggests, “isn’t failure—it’s evolution.”

No single material or light condition creates universal emotional responses. Cultural context shapes interpretation. In Nordic countries, where daylight is sparse in winter, light is celebrated as a scarce resource. Conversely, in the Mediterranean, shading provides relief. In both cases, material—whether heavy stone or light fabric—partners with light in shaping experience.

The ongoing dialogue between light and materiality balances innovation and inevitability. As EDRA concludes, this balance is as mutable as the shadows it produces: dynamic, ephemeral, human.