I’ve always had a complicated relationship with darkness. Growing up in Seattle, those long winter nights felt oppressive at times – but there was also something magical about how the absence of harsh light transformed familiar landscapes. I remember camping trips with my dad where we’d lie on our backs, counting stars and tracing constellations with our fingers.

“We’re seeing ancient history,” he’d say, explaining how some of that light had traveled for millions of years to reach our eyes. That childlike wonder never really left me, even as I moved through my architectural career. It just got buried sometimes under value engineering meetings and client compromise sessions.

Last month, I found myself in rural Montana at 2 AM, standing in complete darkness outside a client’s property. We’d been hired to redesign the lighting for their expansive outdoor space – a project that might have once involved simply calculating optimal foot-candle measurements and selecting fixtures. But this client wanted something different.

“I want to be able to see the stars again,” she told me during our initial conversation. For three nights, I observed how moonlight traveled across their property, how shadows moved and shifted. I noted which spaces naturally collected darkness and which called for intervention.

It struck me that in our rush to illuminate everything, we’ve forgotten the biological value of darkness – not just for wildlife, but for ourselves. This realization isn’t new, of course. The dark sky movement has been growing for decades.

What feels fresh to me is the integration of dark sky principles with biophilic design – creating spaces that respect the natural cycles of light and dark while maintaining our connection to the living world. You know how the most obvious things can sometimes hit you like a revelation? That’s how it felt when I realized that darkness isn’t the absence of biophilic design – it’s an essential component of it.

Natural systems depend on diurnal and seasonal light cycles. By flooding our environment with constant artificial illumination, we’re disrupting those cycles for countless species, including ourselves. Light pollution affects everything from bird migration patterns to turtle hatchlings to our own circadian rhythms.

I’ve seen first-hand how poor lighting design in healthcare facilities disrupts patient sleep patterns and recovery times. If we’re truly committed to biophilic principles, we can’t just focus on bringing nature in during daylight hours – we need to respect the night as well. So what does dark sky biophilic design actually look like in practice?

It’s not about creating spaces that are dangerously dark or unwelcoming. It’s about thoughtful illumination that serves human needs while respecting natural systems. I started implementing these principles in my own backyard first (as usual, my poor house serves as my primary laboratory).

I tore out the harsh security lights that previous owners had installed and replaced them with low-profile path lighting that casts light downward rather than into the sky. I installed motion sensors in areas where constant illumination wasn’t necessary, and selected warmer color temperatures that have less impact on wildlife. The transformation was startling.

Within weeks, I noticed more fireflies in summer evenings. Bats began to visit at dusk. And perhaps most surprisingly, I found myself spending more time outside after dark – now that my eyes could properly adapt without being blinded by floodlights.

There’s something profoundly connecting about sitting in a garden illuminated primarily by moonlight. Colors fade, but textures become more prominent. Sounds seem amplified.

Scents intensify. It’s a completely different sensory experience than daytime gardening – one that contemporary humans rarely experience. For the Montana project, we developed a lighting plan that incorporated these principles on a larger scale.

Near the house, we designed intimate gathering spaces with shielded fixtures that provided enough light for cooking and conversation without spilling into surrounding areas. Further from the house, lighting became progressively more minimal, with reflective materials like light-colored stone that naturally captured and amplified moonlight. Instead of lighting every tree (a surprisingly common practice in luxury landscape design), we selected just a few specimen trees for subtle illumination, creating focal points that drew the eye while leaving the rest of the property to natural darkness.

The effect was dramatic – not just visually, but emotionally. Moving through the space felt like a journey from the familiar human environment to something wilder and more mysterious. “I feel like I can breathe out here now,” the client told me after implementation.

“Before, it felt like the floodlights were holding nature at bay. Now it feels like we’re part of it.” That’s the essence of dark sky biophilic design – creating spaces where humans can safely and comfortably experience the natural world after sunset, without fundamentally altering it through artificial illumination. Implementing these principles isn’t always straightforward.

Security concerns are legitimate. Many clients have initial resistance to reducing outdoor lighting, having been conditioned to associate brightness with safety. Navigating building codes can be challenging, as many were developed with traditional lighting approaches in mind.

But I’ve found that most obstacles can be overcome through thoughtful design strategies. For security, targeted lighting with motion sensors often provides better visibility than constant illumination that creates harsh shadows and compromises night vision. For accessibility, contrast and subtle wayfinding elements can create navigable pathways without requiring high light levels.

The technical aspects matter enormously. Fixture selection, placement, shielding, color temperature, timing systems – these details determine whether a space respects dark sky principles or contributes to light pollution. But the philosophical approach matters just as much.

We need to question our reflexive equation of brightness with safety and quality, our assumption that more illumination is always better. I’ve been collecting research on how humans interact with spaces under different lighting conditions. What’s fascinating is how quickly we adapt to lower light levels when given the chance.

In one mixed-use development project, we gradually reduced exterior lighting over several weeks. Initial complaints from residents stopped entirely once their eyes adjusted to the new normal. Several months later, when we surveyed residents about potential improvements, not a single person mentioned needing more light – many commented positively on being able to see stars from their balconies.

There’s a humility to dark sky design that I find deeply appealing. It acknowledges that our built environments exist within natural systems rather than in opposition to them. It recognizes the value of experiences we can’t fully control or illuminate.

It respects non-human species with whom we share our spaces. I’ve noticed that clients who embrace dark sky principles often undergo a subtle shift in how they relate to their outdoor spaces. They become more attuned to natural cycles – not just day and night, but lunar phases and seasonal changes in light.

They report spending more time outdoors during evening hours. They develop a different relationship with familiar landscapes, experiencing them through senses beyond just vision. My neighbor Tom (who initially thought my lighting redesign was utterly batty) recently told me he’s started turning off his porch light specifically to watch the fireflies with his granddaughter.

“She’d never seen them before,” he said, somewhat wonderingly. “Can you believe that? Seven years old and never seen a firefly because our yards were always too bright.” These small reconnections matter.

When we design outdoor spaces that allow for authentic experiences of darkness, we’re not just reducing energy consumption or helping wildlife – we’re creating opportunities for people to experience natural phenomena that have inspired human wonder for millennia. My current obsession is exploring how indigenous cultures approached nighttime illumination before electricity. Many developed sophisticated ways of navigating darkness that didn’t involve constant artificial light – using reflective materials strategically, understanding how moonlight interacts with different surfaces, creating spaces that could be navigated primarily through touch and memory rather than sight.

There’s so much wisdom in these approaches that we’ve forgotten in our rush to illuminate everything. I’m not suggesting we abandon electric lighting – I’m not quite that radical! – but I do think there’s value in reconsidering our reflexive flooding of outdoor spaces with constant artificial light.

Dark sky biophilic design isn’t about creating perfectly dark environments or eliminating all outdoor lighting. It’s about thoughtful illumination that serves genuine human needs while respecting natural systems and cycles. It’s about creating outdoor spaces where the boundaries between human environments and natural ones blur beautifully, day and night.

Last week, I took my coffee outside around 5:30 AM, before sunrise. In my redesigned garden with its minimal, shielded pathway lights, I could clearly see Jupiter and Venus close together in the eastern sky. A bat made one final circuit around my yard before seeking daytime shelter.

Somewhere nearby, a bird began its morning song. As the sky gradually lightened, I watched my garden slowly emerge from darkness – first as shadowy forms, then revealing colors as dawn progressed. This daily transformation from darkness to light is one of nature’s most profound rhythms – one that connects us to every human ancestor who ever lived.

When our outdoor spaces respect that rhythm rather than override it, we create environments that feel more alive, more connected, and ultimately more human.