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Halored / Lighting design

Lighting design: Light that keeps the architect’s intent.

Halored’s lighting design is for architects, interior architects, landscape architects and clients who want light to work in the space, on the façade and in the landscape exactly as it was intended on the drawing.

Let’s talk about your projectSee how we work

Our view of light

Light is the only material you cannot touch, yet it decides how every other material is seen. The same concrete, the same oak, the same lime plaster can be warm in one light and flat in another. That is why our work does not begin with a product catalogue but with the space – with what the architect and interior architect wanted a person to feel in it.

The best compliment to our work is when the person in the room notices not the luminaires but the room itself. When a façade looks in the evening the way it was designed, and not like a luminaire catalogue. When a promenade feels safe and you can still see the stars.

We think of day and night together. Daylight and artificial light are two halves of one whole, and at Estonia’s latitude, where darkness covers more than half the year, darkness is the surface of our design, not a problem. We do not add light where it is not needed – we put it where it works.

Who we work with

Why Halored

01

An interior architect sits at our table

Halored’s lighting design team includes Hannelore Kääramees, a chartered interior architect-expert (level 8). For us this is a matter of principle: the intent of the architect and interior architect must be understood first, and only then lit.

In practice this means your sketch is read with an interior architect’s eyes before anyone opens a lighting calculation. We do not offer a solution that is technically correct but foreign to the idea of the space. And when the collaboration is between an architect and an interior architect who both know what a good space is, it stays on the same wavelength from start to finish.

02

The knowledge of the world’s best manufacturers is on our desk

Halored represents a wide range of European quality brands in Estonia – manufacturers of architectural lighting, façade lighting, dynamic light and control systems whose products are used on the world’s leading projects.

That does not mean the solution starts from a catalogue. It means that once the concept is set, we have a direct line to the manufacturers’ engineers, photometric data, optics, test results and practices proven elsewhere in the world. The wheel need not be reinvented on every project: if the same question has already been solved well somewhere, we know it and bring the solution to your project.

We know the market more widely than our own portfolio. If the product that fits a project best is one we do not represent, we say so and design with it.

03

Custom solutions built on an engineering base

Halored has long been known as a maker of custom solutions with a strong engineering base. When no standard product exists – the luminaire must disappear into a detail, the profile must be narrower than any in a catalogue, the façade needs light for which no product exists, or exterior lighting must withstand Estonian winters and Baltic salt – we design and manufacture it.

On our team, lighting designers, a mechanical engineer and lighting automation specialists work side by side, and that is why our concepts do not remain visualisations. Every idea we draw, we can also build. The result: light that works in the interior, on the façade and outdoors, even in the most demanding conditions.

04

Light that moves – and can be controlled

For us, lighting automation is part of the design, not an accessory. A dynamic façade that changes with the seasons and events; an office where light follows daylight and people’s movement; a hotel where scenes change imperceptibly – all of this must be planned in the sketch, not added at the end of construction.

Our experience extends to very large installations: we have built systems where tens of thousands of DALI and DMX luminaires run in a single installation, dynamic and functional lighting under one logic. We know how a scene gets from sketch to programmed controller, and the difference between a beautiful visualisation and a system that still works ten years on.

We know every control-system manufacturer and their portfolios. That is why we choose the solution that fits the project, not the habitual one.

How we work

Lighting design adds the most value when it is at the table from the sketch onwards – when the suspended-ceiling height, window size and façade material are still undecided. Our stages follow the Estonian design phases so that every party knows what is delivered when.

  1. 01

    Sketch and brief

    We listen to the architectural idea. We read the sketch and describe the principles of light: what is primary in the space, what is secondary, where the darkness is, how light moves through the day and the year. We give a first budget range so that lighting has its right place in the overall budget from the start.

    Deliverable: lighting concept principles, references and mood images, preliminary budget estimate

  2. 02

    Preliminary design – concept

    The concept takes shape: lighting zones and scenes, luminaire types and placement principles, first lighting calculations, visualisations, control principles.

    Deliverable: concept album, preliminary luminaire schedule, refined budget

  3. 03

    Detailed design – technical solution

    The concept becomes a design: luminaire layouts, specifications, custom-solution details, lighting calculations, control-system structure. We work with the electrical designer so that lighting and the electrical design speak the same language.

    Deliverable: lighting design, specification, control diagram

  4. 04

    Working drawings and procurement

    Final manufacturer selection, samples and trial installations on site, production drawings for custom solutions. In procurement we help compare offers by substance, not price tag – equivalence in lighting means optics, colour rendering and controllability, not watts.

  5. 05

    Construction and commissioning

    Site visits, installation checks, aiming of luminaires, scene programming and tuning together with the architect and client. This is where the light is finished – not on the drawing, but in the space.

  6. 06

    In use

    We hand over the user guide and maintenance information. Once the building has been lived in, we adjust the scenes to real use.

Visualisations

Visualisations built from the lighting calculation. They let the architect and the client see how light shapes the space and the façade before a single luminaire is installed.

Krulli 6d

Visualisation · 3 images

Hotel Part, Pärnu

Visualisation · 5 images

Inbank

Visualisation · 2 images

Tondi 53, Tallinn

Visualisation · 3 images

Volta 1D

Visualisation · 3 images

Services

Team

Halored’s lighting design team brings together lighting designers, an interior architect, a mechanical engineer, lighting automation specialists and project managers. The line-up is deliberate: a good lighting solution is born where understanding of space, technical execution and control sit at one table, not between three different companies.

Full team and contacts

Selected work

Our largest lighting design projects.

Questions we are often asked

When is the right time to bring in a lighting designer?

At the sketch stage. Every later stage narrows the options: suspended-ceiling height, recess positions, façade details and cable routes are decided before lighting is even discussed. If the project is already in detailed design, we will still help – but honestly, by then the best solution is six months old.

Do we have to use the brands Halored represents?

No. Our brand portfolio is a toolbox, not a constraint. The concept comes from the space, products are chosen to fit the concept, and if the best product is outside our portfolio, we design with it.

How does the lighting design relate to the electrical design?

The lighting design gives the electrical designer luminaire positions, types, loads and the control structure; the electrical design solves supply and routing. We work with the electrical designer from the start so that the two need not be reconciled at the end.

Do you also do the automation part alone?

Yes. If another designer has already produced the lighting solution, we design, program and commission the control system.

Are small projects too small?

A private house or a single restaurant can be more demanding in terms of light than a large office building. Let’s talk – we decide together which form of collaboration suits the project.

Bring the sketch. We’ll talk the rest through in light.

Write or call – the first conversation is always free, and it is most useful while the drawing is still changing.

Get in touch