National Harbor

Location: Oxon Hill, MD
Architect: Sasaki

HLB was engaged to develop the lighting component of the master plan and design implementation for National Harbor, a 300-acre mixed-use development in the Washington DC Beltway area. HLB’s lighting masterplan for National Harbor began with solutions for practical functions, but then worked to transcend the practical and articulate the environment. The lighting ‘ethos’ that HLB Lighting strives to create in large scale planning initiatives - lighting that manifests itself both as the unifying theme for a development and as the expression of a development’s unique parts. In order for the two ends of this spectrum of expression to come together as a powerful whole, lighting must be used as a multi-layered design tool in both bold and subtle strokes.