Architectural lighting design belongs to the fields of architecture, interior design, and electrical engineering that involve the design of lighting systems, including natural light, electric lights, or both, to meet human needs, and it has now undergone great changes and progress. Whether it is outdoor lighting or indoor lighting, people will have higher requirements for it, and the entire lighting project will develop more vigorously. However, lighting design methods can be different according to different needs. Generally speaking, the common lighting design methods of modern architectural lighting can be divided into the following categories:

1. Projection lighting

Use the spot light, installed outside the building, to illuminate the building surface, while achieving energy saving and environmental protection, the overall shape, three-dimensional effect, and material of the building are displayed. Projection lighting should pay attention to the control of the illuminance and brightness of the building facade, and at the same time, the direction and angle of the lighting fixtures should be reasonably set, and the installation points of the lighting equipment should be hidden as much as possible. In addition, use fresh and simple lights of the same color as much as possible. Public buildings other than glass curtain walls can use projection lighting, but residential buildings should use flood lighting with caution.

2. Contour lighting

Usually, incandescent lamps are installed continuously at a certain interval, or linear light sources (string lights, holiday lights, melamine lights, light pipes, indoor light strips, integral light-emitting optical fiber lines, etc.) are used to directly outline the building. For modern buildings with rich contours or buildings with characteristic shapes, it is suitable to use the combination of contour lighting and local flood lighting, and using narrow light to illuminate the edge of the building can also have a contouring effect.

3. Lighting from interior lights

Lighting from interior lights: Using types of indoor lights or lighting fixtures equipped with equipment in unique positions, the light source is scattered from the inside of the building to the outside, resulting in the actual effect of illuminating the night scene of the building as white as jade.

Three main ways of lighting from interior lights: (1) Make full use of indoor lights at night to form a light-emitting surface or light-emitting strip on the glass, and let the light transmit to the outside of the building through the glass and glass curtain wall; (2) Specially set lighting equipment that enables lighting from interior lights around the windows or the parts that need accent lighting inside the building to form a unique luminous body to show a unique artistic effect; (3) Adopting high-tech lighting settings, the luminous elements formed by internal light transmission are combined into lighting patterns around the windows, and the dynamic demonstration effect is simulated under the control of the electronic system. Thus, lighting from interior lights is especially suitable for buildings with glass curtain wall structures.

4. Flood lighting

Facade flood lighting uses point light sources that illuminate uniformly in all directions with an adjustable illumination range to produce shadows to highlight the undulations of the building facade. Its actual effect can not only present the panoramic view of the building, but also reasonably show the architectural design, layering of decorative stones and materials, and even the solution of decorative details.

Flood lighting is not simply to reproduce the daytime image of the building, but to use the light, color, and shadow of projection lighting to brighten the night scene of the building, thereby reconstructing a more charming, pretty, tall, and majestic building at night.

5. Mixed lighting

Mixed lighting mainly adopts the combination of edge outline and flood lighting, fully based on the morphological characteristics of the building, and comprehensively uses a variety of lighting techniques to create a beautiful architectural visual art image. When choosing the light point, pay attention to the setting of the light point as low as possible, so that the light is flat or projected upward to the building. In mixed lighting, special attention should be paid to controlling the direction of light exiting and avoiding contact with the water surface.

6. Special lighting

Use modern scientific and technological means and media to open up a broad development space for architectural lighting, and usually use special lighting equipment and technologies such as optical fibers, light guides, laser lights, and projection lights to create unique lighting artistic effects.