Photo: Philippe Vermes

Quality of Light

It’s hard to say which part of this Caribbean scene is more arresting: the distant islands and sky or the roof deck, handsomely illuminated by Claudia Librett, J76. Librett lit all four buildings of a lavish new 40,000-square-foot family beach compound using seventy different types of mostly LED fixtures, many of them custom-designed to withstand the region’s earthquakes and hurricanes. For her efforts, she and her design firm, 521 Atelier in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, received top awards in the Illuminating Engineering Society Philadelphia’s 2014 design competition. “It’s a pleasure to bring stunning architecture to light,” she says.