Feature Story
When Lette Birn and her husband moved to Los Alamos from Germany so he could continue his career as a scientist more than three decades ago, she was unable to find the lighting fixtures she wanted for the home they were building.
“Our builder said, ‘Why don’t you import some from Europe,’ which I did,” Birn said.
From that simple suggestion, Form + Function was born and has been a staple of alternative, decorative and artistic lighting sources in Santa Fe for 34 years.
“I actually went to Denmark and Germany and trade fairs,” Birn said of her search for lights that fit her ideal. “Over the years, I’ve gone to trade fairs in the United States and found all the different lights we now we carry.”
A former middle-school equivalent school teacher in Germany, Birn now does her educating every time she speaks with a new client.
“All the time, every single time,” she said. “I’m into lighting every day. Other people are into lighting the moment they start looking to buy, but they won’t start thinking about that again when they’re done.”
Birn also is active with a well-read blog that provides all kinds of lighting tips, updates on the latest innovations and general lighting information.
“I’ve spent a lot of time writing my blog, ‘Light My Nest,’” she said. “So my teaching now went hand in hand with writing a blog. We were one of the first in the lighting industry that started a website, started with knowledge-based recommendations and consultations. Everything is geared to giving lighting consultations.”
Those consultations are the first step in delivering a lighting package that fits the space and creates not only a warm, cozy feeling, but enhances the livability of a house.
“A lot of it is how the space works for you and how you feel about it,” she said. “Most people buy their homes during the daytime, but they are mostly there and entertain at night. All the windows are dark. A lot people don’t think about that. They buy a home because of the feel it has during the day. But you have
to have a similar feel that you love your home at night.”
It also means developing a strategy where the light source is not necessarily the focus of attention, but rather helps direct the focus of attention where it needs to go.
“Usually what we want is to create the best environment for the people that live there, and the different tasks they do in each space,” she said. “We don’t want the light to stand out or the light source to be seen, but you want anybody who enters into the room to feel comfortable.”
For instance, in an area designed to showcase artistic pieces, “it’s incredible the colors you can bring out in the artwork,” Birn said. “How you can make things pop or how you make the kitchen feel really inviting.’ It’s not about showing the light fixture, but what atmosphere they bring.”
And then in spaces where it’s appropriate, then choose some fixtures of an artistic nature, she said.
“Then you can have some sculptural pieces where you want the fixtures to be seen,” Birn said.
According to Birn, there’s been quite a change since the company’s start. “We opened the store in 1983. That was the height, the boom of Santa Fe style and local hand-crafted. We imported some lighting from Europe and we had a clear focus on locally hand-crafted. But that has changed over the years.”
It became clear as she began going into people’s homes to discuss their lighting needs that many people simply were unaware of the best ways to light up a home.
“When we started doing more consultations and homes, we got into all kinds of track lighting,” Birn said. “It went from selling artistic lighting, not only local hand-crafted light fixtures that were very cutting edge, but also sculpted items from Europe. We were illuminating people’s homes and their artwork at home. And then we got into the more technical part of it. How do you highlight artwork? What can you do to really showcase the piece? We’ve just evolved over the years to always keep up with the cutting edge and what’s going on in the lighting world.”
In order to do that, Birn spent considerable energy getting educated about the lighting field from traditional and not-so-traditional sources.
“We’re spending a lot of time gaining knowledge and what lighting can do for your health and well-being and the feeling of your home,” she said. “I’ve gone to a lot of conferences. When you get into that world it just opened up the possibilities. I went to different conferences in the hospitality industries or medical industries all looking at the well-being of clients. That should be applied to your home as well.”
The company even works with people who are designing their homes from scratch.
“We look at the lighting plans, but we don’t make the architectural plans,” Birn said. “We definitely spend a lot of time guiding people and designers as to where to place the lighting and what needs to be considered, how many lights to add and where to add them. We also consult on how to save money by planning smartly. In our business, we start from the bottom up; what’s the least you would have to spend in order to achieve what you want to achieve.”