In a small Tuscan village immersed in nature and history, an international workshop was held dedicated to lighting design in outdoor spaces. It was an immersive experience that brought together designers, technicians, researchers, and companies in a direct exchange on how light can interact with landscape, architecture and, above all, with darkness.
The chosen location was Abbadia a Isola, just a few kilometers from Monteriggioni. A place distinguished by its untouched atmosphere and a night sky so dark that the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye. An ideal setting to reflect on a new culture of light.
Light in respect of history
Abbadia a Isola is a place that resists modernity through the strength of its materials: stone, bricks, and dry concrete speak of centuries of history and stillness. In such a context, light must be discreet, warm, and respectful.
A measured design is needed—where every lumen is calibrated, and every color temperature is carefully chosen. This approach to lighting design respects the darkness, the context, and the historical value of the location.
This project, developed in collaboration with Light Collective and the studio Traverso-Vighy, gave life to an open-air experimental lab: a real opportunity to reflect on how light can become a tool for enhancing landscape and architecture.
Arch. Giovanni Traverso - Studio Traverso-Vighy
For Simes, the workshop was a valuable opportunity to listen to designers, observe closely how they approach lighting in historical contexts, and gather concrete needs: warmer light, less intrusive, controllable.
In this sense, the goal is not only technical but also cultural: transforming darkness from a limitation into a design resource to be embraced.
Designing for darkness
Too often artificial light is seen as synonymous with overexposure. Here, the opposite was true: we worked to enhance darkness, creating scenarios where light does not invade but rather accompanies.
The temporary lighting installations showed how just a few lumens, precisely directed and sensitively adjusted, can enhance historical volumes and the depth of the nighttime landscape.
Controlling light to shape experience
One of the most significant insights from the workshop was the importance of controllable lighting. In such delicate settings, being able to adjust beam spread, light intensity, and color temperature in real time gives the designer a tool that is not only technical but expressive.
Simes’ lighting control technologies, such as Digital Beam, proved particularly effective in these contexts, as they allow for on-site modulation of the light output, adapting it to the surroundings and fostering a constant dialogue between light and material.
The adopted solutions—precise optics, warm tones, advanced dimming and control systems—were designed to integrate with the surrounding environment and minimize impact on the nocturnal ecosystem.
As highlighted during the nighttime trials, these solutions were essential in reducing light pollution without sacrificing visual expressiveness, helping to respect wildlife, people, and the landscape.
A new culture of outdoor lighting
Rediscovering the value of darkness also means freeing ourselves from the notion that it is a problem to be solved. On the contrary, darkness is a resource. It is a backdrop. It is landscape.
Well-designed light does not eliminate darkness—it interprets it, enhances it, accompanies it.
Abbadia a Isola reminded us that darkness can be revealing when light is conceived to emphasize the essential.
In this sense, the workshop also represents a cultural movement: educating toward the beauty of the night, overcoming the idea that darkness means danger, and demonstrating that light, when well calibrated, can converse with darkness rather than erase it.
Ongoing Dialogue with Design
This experience is part of a journey that Simes has been pursuing for years: creating concrete opportunities for collaboration with designers, where field experimentation becomes a moment of learning, exchange, and mutual growth.
Workshops like this are not isolated events but steps along a path that puts design intelligence and sensitivity to context at the center. Every place requires a different light and our goal is to help designers find it.
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