01StudioSphere. Light held in slices.

Light is the material.

Not Bad Lighting is an architectural lighting studio working across restaurants, bars, hotels, homes, landscapes and large installations. We compose light as art with a purpose: made to be felt, and made to be useful.

Studio

02Position
Two round wall lights, one lit, casting a warm halo across a dark wall
Fig. 01, A halo of warm light on a dark wall, Studio

Art with a purpose.

Light changes how a place is felt, navigated, used and remembered. It can make a long table intimate, a garden walkable and a facade quietly present at night. We treat it as architecture, not decoration.

The work is equal parts composition and restraint. We decide where light should land, how warm it should be and how much darkness to keep around it, so every space holds a clear hierarchy and a reason to stay.

03FounderA life in light

Angelos Babaloukas

Black and white portrait of Angelos Babaloukas at a drafting table, drawing a plan in pencil
Fig. 02, At the drawing board, Angelos Babaloukas

More than thirty years, one material.

Angelos Babaloukas founded Not Bad Lighting on a simple conviction: light is an art, and art in a space should have a purpose.

His work has ranged from intimate dining rooms to major hospitality projects, private homes, landscapes and large installations, and the passion has never dimmed. Every project still starts in the space itself, after dark and pencil in hand, reading what is already there before a single light is added.

Role
Founder and visionary
With light
More than thirty years
Practice
Hospitality, homes, landscapes and installations
04PrinciplesFour rules, every project

What we hold to.

  1. P.01Principle

    Spaces before fixtures

    The architecture and the people using it decide where light belongs.

  2. P.02Principle

    Darkness is part of the plan

    Contrast gives a space depth, direction and places to rest.

  3. P.03Principle

    Atmosphere has a job

    Every glow should guide, reveal, welcome or make a moment more useful.

  4. P.04Principle

    Focus is the final drawing

    Aiming and dimming on site turn a specification into a lived atmosphere.

05DisciplinesIndoors and out

Every kind of space.

  1. 01

    Restaurants and bars

    Light that makes a table intimate, a room legible and the night worth staying for.

  2. 02

    Hotels and hospitality

    Arrival, lobby, suite, corridor, terrace and landscape composed as one journey.

  3. 03

    Private residences

    Quiet interiors and gardens shaped around material, view and the way people live.

  4. 04

    Exteriors and landscape

    Paths, planting, water and facades revealed without erasing the darkness around them.

  5. 05

    Installations

    Large scale pieces where light itself is the work, made for a single night or to stay.

06ProcessFrom first reading to final focus

How a project moves.

  1. 01

    Read

    We study the architecture, landscape, materials, daylight and the way people move through the space.

  2. 02

    Compose

    We set hierarchy, contrast, warmth and rhythm before choosing any visible hardware.

  3. 03

    Resolve

    We coordinate details and controls until the lighting belongs to the architecture.

  4. 04

    Focus

    On site, after dark, we aim, dim and refine until the atmosphere is right.

07Studio

The name is modest on purpose. The light is not.

Start a project