A house in the woods above Lake Como asked for very little of us. The trees already do most of the work: green light sifted through leaves at breakfast, a long blue shade settling over the terrace by late afternoon. Our part was to add lamps that would never argue with any of it.

Light kept behind the wood

Inside, the Blacklight Objects carry the rooms. Matte carbon tubes vanish against dark panelling and send a single warm beam down onto a table, a chair, a book left open on the arm of a sofa. Where the ceilings run low, the Arbor pieces sit close to the joists and wash the timber from above, so the grain reads at night much as it reads at noon. Along the hall and the landings the Heirloom Objects hold small pools of light at hand height. They are the pieces people reach for as they pass.

Outside, the path down to the water had to work in rain, in frost, in the damp green dark of a lakeside winter. The Medusa Outdoor forms rest low in the planting and glow upward through the ferns, giving the gravel just enough definition to walk by without a torch. Nothing is floodlit. The forest keeps its dark.

What remains is a house that seems lit by the ground it stands on. We only drew the lines.