Hamburg lighting designer teaches at HAWK Hildesheim

Markus Felsch, founder of the lighting design practice Felsch Lighting Design in Hamburg, is teaching as acting professor at HAWK Hildesheim (winter semester 20/21 and summer semester 21). With its Lighting Design programme, the university offers an undergraduate degree in lighting design and lighting planning in Europe. Only in Hildesheim can future lighting designers complete a bachelor's degree in this discipline.
Back to the roots of his training as a lighting designer
In 2004, Markus Felsch was one of the first graduates of the lighting design programme at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim (HAWK). Since the winter semester 2020/21, the former top graduate of his year has returned to the chair with many years of professional experience to pass on his knowledge to the next generation. The lighting designer, who has successfully run his practice Felsch Lighting Design in Hamburg for more than 15 years, says: “Hildesheim set important courses for my professional and private life, and I am looking forward to returning to HAWK. I want to use my knowledge and experience from more than 20 years of working with light to inspire students for this degree programme, which is unique in Germany. Because of the coronavirus pandemic this is currently only possible virtually, but HAWK has handled the switch to purely online teaching in an exemplary way.”

Practical experience combined with scientific commitment
As acting professor, Markus Felsch largely performs the same duties as a full professor. Felsch works for HAWK in research and teaching and, where required, conducts examinations. In his current seminar “Starting a business in the design professions”, Felsch passes on not only his knowledge of the lighting industry but also his experience as an entrepreneur.
In addition to his work as a lighting designer with his own practice in Hamburg, Markus Felsch has been active in teaching and basic research for many years. He has taught lighting design and lighting technology as a lecturer at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) for more than ten years. His studies and regular publications reflect his high standards for the lighting profession.

Research on the hardness of light
His current work deals with the hardness of light: what expresses the quality of hard and soft light, and how can it be described quantitatively? The study “The character of light” addresses these questions and defines a new lighting quantity, the hardness of light (HgF). It describes the ratio of diffuse to directed light in a lighting situation. With the method, for which a European patent has been applied for, lighting designers will for the first time be able to describe an achieved or planned lighting situation unambiguously in technical terms and make it reproducible.

Interested in the study “The character of light”? You can download an abstract here: Measuring the character of light – white paper