Architectural lighting design

Architecture is drawn twice: once in stone, and once, after dark, in light. Diana Delnegro Architectural Lighting is a lighting design studio in Lisbon, Portugal, that designs the second drawing, for buildings, interiors, monuments and public space, in Portugal and abroad.

Every project begins with the architecture, the place and the experience of the night, and the concept is developed alongside rigorous analysis, calculation and technical coordination. The studio works from the urban scale, lighting masterplans and monuments, down to a hotel room or a single painting, and the method is the same at every scale: understand what the place has to say after dark, decide what should be seen first, and design light that is striking yet gentle and comfortable, shifting with the evening.

The service covers the whole of a lighting project: concept and lighting studies, calculation, the specification of luminaires and light sources, control systems and scenes, coordination with the architecture, interiors and engineering teams, and the tuning on site that decides how the work is finally seen. The fittings are made to disappear into the architecture, so that what a visitor notices is the building, not the equipment.

The practice is led by Diana Delnegro, an architect with a PhD in urban lighting from The Bartlett, UCL, and a master's in the conservation of the built heritage, who chairs CIE Technical Committee 4-59 and has practised since 2003. Its work has been recognised internationally: Gold at the ADC Awards for the BP petrol stations, an Honourable Mention at the LIT Awards 2025 for the Fernandine Walls of Porto, and the complete lighting of MACAM, the museum and hotel in Lisbon whose rehabilitation received the Prémio Gulbenkian Património 2025.

Clients include MotaEngil, Visabeira, Fibeira, Hugsan, the municipalities of Porto and Viseu and Património Cultural IP, and the studio is working alongside Kengo Kuma & Associates on M-ODU, the transformation of Porto's former slaughterhouse into a new cultural and office complex.