Using Daylight

It is generally better to make the most of natural light before adding artificial lighting.

An inspiring project used plastic bottles filled with water (and a little bleach to stop algae growth) to spread light into the homes of people who cannot afford electricity in the Philippines. Link

The high-tech equivalent is solar tubes, particularly ones which offer integrated LED lighting and daylight dimming.

Link

The benefit of these products is that spaces deep in the interior of a building can receive natural light during the day, saving electricity. Many of these products include daylight dimming so that you can effectively 'switch off' the daylight if you needed the room to be dark, and also light sensors and built in LED lighting, so that as the daylight fades, the LED lighting switches on and becomes brighter as the daylight diminishes.

The disadvantage is that you have to accommodate for the bulky tubes, which in an attic space is manageable, but running them to lower floors of a building required the tubes to be hidden within cupboards or similar.

Starry Fibre Optic Ceilings

I have seen a few examples of fibre optics being embedded into walls or floors or ceilings, and I think that often it looks very tacky, but can also be done very tastefully.

Generally they will not produce enough 'useable' light to be anything other than decorative, but some of the advantage of fibre optics in these applications (as opposed to using LEDs) are as follows:

• There is only one light source - this means that each individiual point of light does not need to be accessible and so can be fixed permanently (this is useful particularly in flooring as it can be sealed in and create a smooth surface)
• The end of the fibre is not electrically charged - it is merely a transmitter of the remote light source. This means that as long as the light source is kept dry, the actual surface to be lit can be wet.
• By adapting the light source you can add colour, twinkling effects, or dimming without having to touch the individual points of light.

Source: Starscape