Guest Sleep
& Lighting Performance

We identify where lighting is quietly reducing guest sleep quality — and how to improve it through precise, measurable adjustments.

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About us

Studio Von Der Liebl is an architectural lighting consultancy working across hospitality, residential, and commercial sectors. The practice integrates sustainability, circadian awareness, and human-centred performance into precise, restrained lighting strategies aligned with architectural intent and material expression.

Founded in Australia in 2014 following its founder's Fabio Von Der Liebl's studies in Melbourne, the studio began as an interior design practice. Early residential projects in Florianópolis, Brazil, established a holistic approach grounded in materiality and spatial rhythm. Relocation to São Paulo expanded this foundation through further study in design thinking and architectural lighting, leading to national work across Brazil and a refined focus on lighting as a defining spatial discipline.

In 2016, Victor Drummond joined the studio, bringing extensive experience in luxury brand strategy, international marketing, and cultural positioning. His background across global luxury and institutional sectors strengthened the studio’s strategic outlook, reinforcing its ability to operate within high-end residential and hospitality markets with precision and discretion.

In 2022, the practice transitioned exclusively to architectural lighting consultancy, sharpening its methodology toward measurable performance, visual comfort, and long-term environmental responsibility. Today, Studio Von Der Liebl operates internationally, with presence across Brazil and Europe.

Lighting is treated as an invisible layer of architecture — shaping atmosphere and perception without excess. Projects develop through spatial analysis, calibrated modelling, and technical coordination to ensure visual clarity, energy efficiency, and system resilience.

Research informs each stage, including spectral calibration, melanopic awareness, glare control, and sustainable specification. Advanced digital tools support scenario testing and adaptive control strategies across complex environments.

Lighting is not decorative.
It is architectural intelligence — deliberate, measured, and nothing in excess.

Meet the founders

Our Offices

London, United Kingdom

Lisbon, Portugal

Sāo Paulo, Rio de Janeiro & Santa Catarina, Brazil

Studio

Studio Von Der Liebl is an architectural lighting consultancy grounded in precision, restraint, and measurable performance. The practice operates at the intersection of spatial intelligence, environmental responsibility, and human physiology — shaping lighting as an integrated architectural system rather than an applied layer.

Approach

Lighting as Spatial Moderator

Light is treated as a spatial moderator — guiding focus, reinforcing hierarchy, and shaping atmosphere without visual excess. Rather than decorative emphasis, the studio prioritises calibration: contrast ratios, spectral balance, glare control, and spatial rhythm.

Lighting is integrated into architecture and materiality from the earliest stages of design, ensuring coherence between form, surface, and illumination.

Evidence-Based Design

Design decisions are informed by research in visual perception, circadian science, and environmental psychology. Spectral rendering, melanopic impact, flicker mitigation, and colour fidelity are considered alongside functional lux levels and architectural intent.

Each project balances measurable performance with experiential clarity.

Integration Over Decoration

The studio does not approach lighting as ornament. It is embedded within ceilings, joinery, and architectural detail — supporting atmosphere while remaining visually disciplined.

Restraint is not limitation; it is control.

Method

Concept

Spatial analysis establishes hierarchy, rhythm, and programme-based requirements. Early-stage strategy defines tone, contrast, and experiential transition across day and evening conditions.

Simulation & Lux Modelling

Digital modelling and lux calculations inform distribution, uniformity, vertical illuminance, and visual comfort. Beam angles and aiming studies are calibrated to eliminate glare and ensure precision.

Controls Strategy

Digitally addressable control systems are specified to enable adaptive scene transitions, operational flexibility, and energy optimisation. Dimming curves, temporal shifts, and layered zoning are defined in alignment with programme and circadian considerations.

On-Site Calibration

Final commissioning refines aiming, intensity, and scene balance. Calibration ensures the built environment reflects the intended spatial hierarchy and sensory experience.

Lighting performance is measured, not assumed.

Sustainability Commitment

Longevity

Specifications prioritise long-life LED modules, high-efficacy performance, and systems designed for extended operational durability.

Serviceability

Where possible, luminaires are selected for accessible maintenance, modular replacement, and long-term adaptability — reducing unnecessary material waste.

Measured Environmental Performance

Energy efficiency, embodied impact, and lifecycle considerations inform specification. Lighting systems are designed to reduce operational load while supporting comfort, clarity, and wellbeing.

Sustainability is embedded within technical decision-making — not appended as an afterthought.

Lighting is architectural intelligence — precise, integrated, and nothing in excess.

Services

Concept Lighting Strategy

Early-stage spatial analysis defining hierarchy, contrast, tone, and experiential transitions. Lighting strategy is developed in parallel with architecture to ensure integration from inception.

Technical Lighting Design

Detailed luminaire selection, beam calibration, glare control, and coordination with architectural and engineering disciplines. Documentation supports buildability, compliance, and performance integrity.

Daylight Integration

Analysis of orientation, seasonal variation, and interior reflectance to harmonise electric light with natural daylight conditions. Electric lighting is calibrated to complement, not compete.

Control System Strategy

Digitally addressable lighting architectures enabling adaptive scene transitions, operational flexibility, and energy optimisation. Dimming curves and zoning strategies are defined in alignment with programme and circadian considerations.

Performance Modelling

Lux calculations, vertical illuminance studies, and aiming simulations to ensure measurable visual comfort and spatial clarity. Performance is tested prior to construction.

Sustainable Specification

Selection of high-efficacy, serviceable systems prioritising longevity, embodied responsibility, and reduced operational energy demand.

Wellness-Centred Calibration

Spectral consideration, flicker mitigation, glare reduction, and evening melanopic awareness integrated to support comfort, restfulness, and perceptual balance.

Contact

studio@vonderliebl.com+44 7435 878908
Fabio Von Der Liebl
Founder & Principal Lighting Designer

Studio Von Der Liebl®

We design and optimise lighting to improve how spaces perform — enhancing wellbeing, reducing energy use, and aligning light with architecture.

INFORMATION

PROJECTS

RESEARCH

One of growth, One of care

When Light Grows Life: The Fine Line Between Biophilia and Photobiology

November 20, 2025
Last edited on March 11, 2026
by Fabio Von Der Liebl, Founder & Principal Lighting Designer at Studio Von Der Liebl
As lighting designers, we often talk about light as emotion, rhythm, and perception — but light is also biology. It can grow a plant, shape a human mood, or even, in excess, harm both.

Two of the world’s most advanced manufacturers — Nichia and Luminus — have taken radically different approaches to lighting that sustains life beyond human vision: horticultural light.

The Science of Plant Light

While human-centric lighting is based on melanopic response and visual comfort, plant-centric lighting follows a completely different metric system. Plants absorb photons rather than perceive brightness, responding primarily to blue (~450 nm) and red (~660 nm) wavelengths for photosynthesis, while far-red (~730 nm) triggers shade-avoidance growth.

Nichia’s Hortisolis™ reimagines this concept by creating a white-based horticultural spectrum — adding green light to improve visual comfort for workers and allow better assessment of plant health. It’s a thoughtful design that bridges efficiency and human usability. In controlled environments, Nichia reports up to 1.5× faster growth in leafy greensand double yields in tomatoes, all under a balanced spectrum that still feels “natural” to the human eye.

Luminus, on the other hand, takes a modular “light recipe” approach. Its HLB2 horticulture system uses precise mixes of blue, red, far-red, and white diodes, fine-tuned to growth stages — germination, vegetation, flowering, fruiting. Rather than a single universal spectrum, it offers custom spectral engineering to maximise Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF) and efficacy (μmol/J). In other words, Luminus grows light like a nutritionist designs a diet — adjusting every wavelength to fit a purpose.

Biophilic Design vs. Horticultural Lighting

Bringing plant-growth light into interiors sounds poetic — an office that grows herbs by day, a hotel atrium alive with edible greens. Yet, horticultural light isn’t inherently human-safe.

Some UV-A or UV-B wavelengths used for disinfection or photobiology can irritate skin and eyes.
Even visible-spectrum horticultural lighting — rich in red and blue — can cause visual discomfort and circadian disruption when used in spaces meant for people.

That’s why Nichia’s Hortisolis™ white-based approach is significant: it allows for plant growth without creating a purple or visually aggressive environment, making it the only spectrum among major manufacturers designed to be seen and worked under comfortably.

In contrast, Luminus’s high-intensity narrow-band systems are spectrally beautiful but biologically strong — perfect for controlled farms, not living rooms.

Can We Bring Horticultural Light Indoors?

Yes — but with boundaries.

For biophilic interiors, light should evoke the presence of nature rather than recreate its laboratory. That means:

Use white, broad-spectrum light with balanced cyan and red (like Hortisolis™ or daylight-mimicking LEDs).
Combine it with real or artificial greenery illuminated at comfortable CCTs (3500–5000 K).
Avoid UV or high-PPF fixtures near people — those belong in growth rooms or green walls with isolation shielding.

Designing for both human and plant life requires sensitivity, not intensity.

In the End

Light can nurture — whether it’s serotonin in humans or chlorophyll in plants. But these two forms of life require different recipes.

The challenge for designers today is not to choose between human-centric and plant-centric lighting — it’s to balance them, weaving nature’s spectrum back into our built environments without crossing into biological risk.

In that delicate balance, brands like Nichia and Luminus aren’t competing — they’re writing two halves of the same story: one of growth, and one of care.

#LightingDesign #HorticultureLighting #BiophilicDesign #HumanCentricLighting #Nichia #Luminus #Wellbeing #Architecture #Sustainability #InteriorDesign #CircadianRhythm #LightingForLife

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