A professional member of the International Association of Lighting Designers and a professional lighting designer certified by the National Council on Qualifications for Lighting Professions, Paul has over 30 years’ experience in lighting design completing projects in Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Phoenix and other centers across North America.  

Mr. Mercier is a judge for lighting design awards including the International Illumination Design Award for IESNA and General Electric’s International Edison Awards.  He has received numerous awards for interior, exterior, and energy-efficient lighting designs.  Paul is the author of both lighting design and software applications articles and has been published in Canada, England, Australia, Asia, and the United States. 

He is a seasonal instructor for a post-graduate architectural lighting design course at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design and an adjunct instructor of undergraduate lighting design at SUNY College at Buffalo.  Paul instructs on several AIA approved course topics including: Lighting Emerging Technologies, LED Technologies and Applications, LED Architectural Applications and Heritage Landscape Lighting.

Paul will be speaking on Tuesday evening about "Architecture for Light", of true integration of architecture and light.

In his words:

It used to come naturally; we knew how daylight worked and understood the behavior of light and shadow…not because somebody taught us, but because we lived immersed in the reality of light.  There were no options. 

And, when presented with the opportunity to forget our base of knowledge because electric lighting made it easy to accommodate oversights, well, we could focus on other pursuits including new frontiers in aesthetics and materiality. And, as a design community we became disconnected from the apprenticeship of lighting. 

Lighting design is not the study of sources that are available or of the form factors of luminaires.  At least, it shouldn’t be.  Lighting design is about the understanding of the behavior of light and shadow to the benefit of the built environment.   

If we start with this definition of lighting design as a given, the point of discussion for the forward thinking design community is obvious; Built environments that embrace light, effects of volume on light, the importance of verticality, and materials integration.   

In other words: Architecture for Light.

We are honoured to have this rare chance of hearing such a celebrated speaker as Mr Mercier presenting at Architecture Week. Paul has made the journey to Ottawa from New York; please join us in welcoming him at Architecture Week. You can hear his lecture "Architecture for Light" on Tuesday Sep. 25th at 6pm at Saint Brigid's. Don't miss this event!

For more information, download Paul's CV here or visit Lighting Design Innovations.