Currently in its eighth edition, the LIT Lighting Design Awards, a subsidiary of the BLT Built Design Awards (BLT) under the 3C Awards, recently announced winning designers across diverse categories in architectural lighting, event lighting and product design. Over the years, LIT and its sister awards have emerged as “some of the most well-known design prizes today”, as stated in the official release. This year, the design awards created to platform the works of product designers and lighting implementers producing influential work in the industry honoured Tony Award-nominated Allen Lee Hughes with their prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Hughes has been instrumental in several Broadway and theatre productions, producing lighting designs for shows such as Once on This Island (1990), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2012) and A Soldier's Play (2020). Celebrating creativity and innovation in a field that blends both artistic and scientific principles, winners were selected from over 800 submissions from 58 countries by a jury of 35 esteemed professionals, including architects, interior designers, academics and media representatives.

This year’s honourees showcase how contemporary designers are pushing the boundaries of the field, illuminating how spaces can be transformed with the emotive gestures of cognisant lighting design. The awards are divided broadly into Architectural Lighting Design; Entertainment Lighting Design and Light Product Design, with these top accolades being granted to London-based Studio ZNA for Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto at the Victoria and Albert Museum; Tokyo-based company LUCENT for The Creation and Germany-based Pipe Lighting GmbH for their pipe lighting respectively.

In the Architectural Lighting category, Studio ZNA’s work for the design exhibition at the V&A on Chanel was recognised for how the design enhanced the showcase’s narrative. With subtly shifting illuminance in the sections—moving from dawn to dusk to evening evoking excitement and wonder—the over 200 works on display in the exhibition were carefully lit taking into account their sensitive and time-sensory nature. The lighting designers also ensured that sustainability was a prime criterion for the project, using lighting fixtures that could effortlessly be re-used in the future by the museum for other exhibitions. Studio ZNA also won prizes in the categories of Visitor Experience & Museum Exhibition for their work at the recently refurbished National Portrait Gallery in London and the Fashion Design Lighting honour for their illumination of India in Fashion exhibition at Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai. Other winners in the Architectural lighting category included lighting design firm Brandston Partnership Inc. who won two awards for China’s pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale and for their work in the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Chengdu Science Fiction Museum. Athens-based Eleftheria Deko & Associates Lighting Design were credited for their work in illuminating the heritage structure of the Temple of Poseidon, Sounion, bringing the monument to life.

For the top prize in the Entertainment Lighting Design category, LUCENT and the lighting designer Takahiro Matsuo were acknowledged for their shimmering art installation, The Creation. Evoking the origin of the universe and nature through the interplay of light and dark, the designers innovatively used 20,000 suspended acrylic spheres for the project. Apart from LUCENT, Ukraine-based Kabluka Light & Digital Sculptures won in the Event Lighting category for their lighting installation, The Soul. German designers Licht Kunst Licht AG’s project for Casals Forum - Music Quarter, Kronberg was also commended for their pioneering work blending cultural heritage with modern lighting techniques.

Evgenii Vetlugin and Eduard Bochanov of Pipe Lighting GmbH were recognised in the Lighting Product Design category for their pipe lighting, “an innovative, eco-friendly LED system designed for film sets, combining portability with high efficiency,” as stated in the official release. Other product designs that were celebrated by the awards included Nichetto Studio’s vibrant design Soft Blown for Lladró in the Decorative Accent Lamps category. Moonlight Architectural Squad’s Jupiter Bollard lighting and Meteor Lighting’s Whiz 2.0 Bi-directional floodlight won for their sophisticated and versatile design; among other lamp designs and technical lighting that won in different categories.

Speaking about the design awards and the designers acknowledged for their illustrious work, Astrid Hébert, director of the LIT Lighting Design Awards stated in the official release, “With over 800 submissions this year and our 10th anniversary coming up, it’s exciting to see how lighting design continues to transform spaces and inspire change.” Platforming a field that can evoke the strongest emotions through the stirring manipulation of a very intangible medium, the awards also spotlight emerging designers each year. These winners are additionally awarded 1000 Swiss francs and a six-month mentorship through the Silhouette Awards programme. This year, the prize was given to Vilnius Academy of Arts’ Vaida Atkocaityte-Dalisanskiene in the Lighting Product Design category for MOOD, a modular design that users can modify to create their light compositions reflecting their emotions and daily rhythms. California College of the Arts’ David Yang and Margo Majewska won accolades for their immersive installation, Light in Motion which was inspired by the Southwest canyons.

Each year, the design prize also commends an influential designer working in lighting with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The honour is bestowed on Allen Lee Hughes commemorating his five-decade career in theatre, opera and dance. As the official release notes. Hughes’ technical expertise in the illumination design of theatrical productions has been inspirational to generations of designers; elevating the field’s global reputation. "Honoring Allen Lee Hughes for his exceptional career is a celebration of his immense influence and the lasting impact he’s had on the industry,” Hébert notes. The designer has been distinguished with four Tony Award nominations for his illustrious career that spans Broadway, off-Broadway and collaborations with world-renowned performing arts companies such as the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada.

Hughes’ mastery of theatrical lighting is demonstrated by how the designer manages to bring out the emotional depths of a story while keeping the limelight on the actors, as the official release enumerates. He also serves as an Associate Arts Professor in Design for Stage & Film at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, mentoring young designers and has instituted a Fellowship under his name to encourage diversity in the industry. For his notable contributions to lighting design, Hughes has previously won the USITT Distinguished Achievement Award (2003) and the Michael Merritt Award (1997). On his win, Hughes states in the official release, “The award means a great deal to me and all of my many collaborators. Over the years, I have attempted to help tell hundreds of stories through my work as a lighting designer. There is a glorious feeling when we are rewarded with an audience that reaps pleasure and knowledge from our work.”