Defining the Need Before Designing the Exterior Lighting
Azin Dilmaghani, WSP
Virtual
Friday, April 9, 2027
10:15 am – 11:15 am ET
Credits TBA
Intermediate
Every lighting solution begins with a definition of need—but that definition can shape the project long before the first calculation is performed. Exterior lighting briefs routinely translate broad objectives such as safety, visibility, identity, accessibility, and compliance into design criteria, often while multiple needs and constraints compete. This session examines this consequential transition from project intent to lighting criteria. Grounded in Doctoral research and professional practice, real-world scenarios will demonstrate a structured approach to distinguishing requests from underlying needs, evaluating competing priorities and contextual constraints, and translating them into purposeful, proportionate, and defensible criteria—strengthening the reasoning that guides exterior lighting design from the outset.
A working knowledge of lighting design principles and the typical design process is recommended. No specialized technical expertise is required; the session is intended for professionals involved in defining, developing, or evaluating lighting requirements and design criteria.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize When a Lighting Request Is Already Prescribing the Solution – Differentiate project intent, user needs, visual tasks, lighting criteria, and design solutions to identify assumptions embedded in an exterior lighting brief.
- Define What the Project Actually Needs from Light – Analyze users, activities, spatial conditions, environmental context, and project objectives to determine the specific role lighting is expected to perform.
- Translate Design Intent into Meaningful Lighting Criteria – Formulate performance-based lighting criteria that respond to defined project needs without prematurely limiting the range of appropriate design solutions.
- Strengthen the Lighting Brief Before Design Begins – Apply a structured reasoning process to develop clearer, traceable lighting requirements that improve communication and decision-making across multidisciplinary project teams.
Speaker
Azin Dilmaghani
Senior Manager
WSP
Azin Dilmaghani is an architectural lighting leader, designer, researcher, and educator with more than 20 years of experience at the intersection of architecture, lighting, and the built environment. Trained as an architect and having built her career in architectural lighting, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective that connects design thinking, technical knowledge, project delivery, and practice leadership.
As Senior Manager of WSP Canada’s Lighting Studio, Azin leads a large multidisciplinary lighting practice and has worked across a diverse portfolio of transportation, healthcare, public realm, institutional, commercial, and civic projects. Her work extends beyond project delivery to practice development, team building, mentorship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and advancing the role of lighting within the broader design process.
Azin holds a Doctor of Design from the University of Calgary and two Master’s degrees in Architecture, and is a Lighting Certified (LC) professional and Project Management Professional (PMP). Her professional and academic interests explore the relationship between light, people, place, and the decisions that shape the built environment. She is particularly interested in bringing research and practice closer together—translating complex questions into practical approaches that support more thoughtful and informed design decisions.