A town palace in Kuala Lumpur, emptied back to its shell and then filled again. The restoration kept what the house had already earned: deep shutters, plaster cornices, a courtyard that holds the heat of the afternoon. Our brief was a quiet one. Bring light in without asking the rooms to change for it.

Light that keeps its distance

Where the ceilings allowed, we hung the Presto rings — slender brass circles that carry a warm disc of light down to the table and stop there. Along the corridor runs the Presto! W, a hand-formed brass line with twenty small points of direct light, enough to read the plaster by and nothing more. In the loggia off the courtyard, a Presto! Plug Diver hangs from a steel cable, counterweighted by iron, plugged in, dimmed by hand.

Nothing was cut into the old fabric. No recesses, no new conduit chased through the walls. Each lamp arrives as an object placed in a room, so the room stays itself. Brass against white plaster, a blue cable crossing a cornice, warm circles pooling on dark timber. The house reads as restored. It also reads as lived in, which is the harder half.

We worked one room at a time, and the light came last. It stays out of the way. That is the point.