Ketra Lighting by Lutron - Iron House Design

Exploring the Magic of Ketra

Introductory Lighting Concepts

Experience Light

Science, art, engineering, design, psychology, physiology — light touches every aspect of life and offers endless possibilities to narrate time and place. In the right hands, light has the power to set the mood and create a one-ofa-kind sensory experience.

Ketra is the best choice to deliver on key design principles and illuminate life’s most treasured moments— with an infinite palette of beautiful light and intelligent controls that allow you to fine-tune each scene. We recommend that you work with a lighting design professional to ensure the overall vision for the space is executed with the proper skill and experience, and we hope this resource serves as inspiration for the limitless possibilities of Ketra light.

While this guide focuses on understanding the power of light in application, it’s important to recognize that light works in harmony with control systems and shading solutions to create a beautiful, functional environment. Shades help deliver the right balance of indoor and outdoor light while adding a sophisticated design element. An integrated control system allows you to pre-program scenes to easily and intuitively personalize your lighting and shades for the task at hand. The combination of beautiful lighting, intelligent shades, and seamless controls are the best way to craft an environment you’ll love.

01 Layer Your Light

Layers of light set the mood and add visual interest to a room with style and versatility. Ambient lighting fills the space with general illumination, while accent lighting highlights featured artwork and other areas of interest. Task lighting directs light onto work surfaces or can cocoon an area to bring a sense of intimacy to the space. Employing these three layers, along with a combination of direct and indirect light is crucial to creating complete lighting scenes with purpose and impact.

Balance Direct vs. Indirect Light

Squarespace used Ketra light to achieve a balance of direct and indirect light in their New York Headquarters. Direct Light is an effective method to distribute ambient light with crisp shadows. Optical accessories can be used to mitigate glare from direct light. Indirect Light can be used to produce ambient light with softer shadows and less glare. Ensuring the proper balance of both direct and indirect light is vital to creating a complete scene.

In this open cafe, Squarespace used G2 fixtures to provide indirect lighting around the suspended ceiling and support column and also to backlight the ceiling and create a starry night effect. For direct lighting, they utilized S38s mounted in cylinder pendants as well as S30s to provide task lighting over the countertops. A20s in custom lamps illuminate seating areas with additional direct lighting.

Apply Curated Scenes

Once the designers fine-tuned every lighting element in Lutron’s Commercial Experience Center to achieve their vision, they were able to save curated scenes and build a pre-programmed collection. Now, when the mood or occasion changes, the occupants can simply switch scenes to create the perfect ambiance for that moment.

Five zones create different layers of light for each scene in this space. The custom ceiling fixture has three distinct zones of control comprised of 12 S30 lamps programmed in a single high-voltage run to provide both direct and indirect illumination. A20s inside floor and table lamps provide accent lighting and two additional zones of control. All together, the five zones of control can be adjusted for both intensity and color point with each scene change.

Preset Scene: Reading

A low level lighting preset provides soft, warm light for an intimate candlelit scene, creating a comfortable and relaxing environment.

The floor and table lamps (zones 4, 5 in the diagram to the left) provide a soft glow of warm light to cocoon occupants while the pendant uses its three zones by splashing a soft glow on the coffee table (zone 1), casting soft uplighting on the ceiling (zone 3) and filling the rest of the room with light for navigating the space (zone 2). The scene is completed by closing the motorized Sivoia shades to shut out excess light and create an oasis.

This brighter scene provides perfect day-to-day lighting — appropriate for completing a wide range of functional tasks like reading a book, working on a laptop, or visiting with family and friends.

The floor and table lamps (zones 4, 5) now provide a bright, neutral colored light to illuminate the seating area with the pendant providing additional general light. (zones 1, 2, 3) This scene also incorporates Ketra’s natural light settings, allowing the color temperature and intensities to change throughout the day to match the natural rhythms of the sun.

Entertain guests with a saturated color scene that allows you to step away from the norms of traditional lighting and make a bold statement when hosting.

The pendant’s zones provide multiple layers of effect to wow guests: a cool white island of light on the coffee table (zone 1), deep purple light to saturate the space (zone 2), and an accent of pink uplighting (zone 3) adds visual interest to the scene. The floor and table lamps (zones 4, 5) match the spotlight and provide additional cool white light to the space for balance.

Lutron + Ketra Products

+ S30 Lamp

+ A20 Lamp

+ Sivoia Shades

02 Create Contrast

Contrast is a powerful tool for adding dimension and drama to a space. Ketra’s TruBeam optics help bring a room’s design to life by creating depth around objects like sculpture, fine furnishings or architectural features, and pulling them into stunning focus. In lighting design, artful contrast is achieved through a combination of proper beam angle selection, appropriate aim and focus, and varying intensity of light.

Choose Your Beam Angle

Focus light precisely where you want with a range of beam angles. Wide Flood fills the room with ambient light. Flood draws focus. Spot adds drama to objects of interest. Using multiple types of light allows you to convert a multi-purpose space from a dedicated media room to a simple yet stylish living room by effortlessly raising the lights and spotlighting artwork.

This scene at Ketra HQ in Austin is brought to life by a myriad of beam angle types. Wide angle S30s uplight the ceiling to provide general illumination, while narrow beam angle S30s above the wooden slats illuminate the walkway. S30 track lamps cast tight beam angles on table surfaces, and S30 floods in pendants provide even light levels over the island. A20s in decorative globe pendants provide omnidirectional light.

Aim and Focus

The aim, shape, and beam characteristics of a light source govern both the direction and distribution of light. By carefully using these elements to craft an interplay of light and shadow, a lighting designer can impact the appearance of the room and any special accents within. Proper aim and focus will draw the eye to specific features in the space, highlight contours, and showcase details to their finest.

Here, Ketra S30 Track lights powered by HomeWorks illuminate the abstract artwork with crossed beams. Track luminaires set further back from the wall cast light towards decorative objects, featuring the shelving unit as a design element.

03 Explore the Spectrum

The flexibility of dynamic, tunable color empowers designers to shape spaces that delight the senses. Ketra’s High Def Palette produces the widest spectrum available, from every shade of white light to any color you desire. This section describes three principles -Color Temperature, Vibrancy and Saturation -- that can be used to indulge in endless creative options to set moods, support functional tasks, or create drama.

Select Color Temperature

Bring nature indoors with Ketra’s high quality white light that recreates any outdoor lighting condition you can imagine. Tap into the cool arctic sky to foster an environment of crispness and productivity in a home office. Create a warm candlelit glow to set the scene for an intimate dinner or promote the vital connection to nature by mimicking natural light as it shifts throughout the day. The right light for the time of day or the task at hand is yours to explore.

In this residential loft, A20 lamps inside custom pendants provide direct, general illumination on the work surfaces, while S30s in a nearby drop ceiling fill the space with ambient light in a matching color temperature.

Render Color with Vibrancy

Not all white light is created equal. Make treasured and everyday objects burst to life with Vibrancy, Ketra’s industry-unique ability to tune the colors that make up white light at a given correlated color temperature (CCT). By changing the recipe of white light to render colors their most vivid and lifelike, Vibrancy allows you to reimagine that light to reflect brilliantly off objects, materials, and artwork.

This conference room at the Lutron Experience Center in NYC utilizes D3 downlights to direct vibrant light to the large painting and pops the details of the items on the shelves, while S30 lamps illuminate the work surface with task lighting.

Play with Saturated Color

Saturated colors are a powerful tool — in an office space, color can be used to reinforce a brand’s visual identity or provide a creative assist in wayfinding. In the home, color can enhance architectural appeal, bring drama to a space, or create the perfect mood for any gathering.

In the image to the right, focused task areas at Vice Media are illuminated by S38 lamps inside track fixtures. G2 linear fixtures inside ceiling coves offer general illumination and added depth to the small rooms. In the detail image below, G2 linears are mounted inside 3rd party fixtures for a tube lighting effect, reinforcing Vice’s creative atmosphere.

Bring Your Vision to Light

We hope this guide offered a starting point for incorporating Ketra lighting into built spaces and illuminated how lighting, shades, and controls work together to enhance the human experience. To learn more about designing with the principles discussed, we recommend exploring industry resources (AIA, IALD, IES) and consulting a lighting designer.

Design is a collaborative pursuit— we invite you to join us in disrupting the lighting experience with our revolutionary system of lights, controls and shades, working together to inspire and delight. For more inspiration, see how Lutron and Ketra craft complete systems at some of the world’s premium built spaces — explore the possibilities at ketra.com/projects