Glenn Shrum transitioned from architecture to lighting to pursue the creative opportunity of light’s profound effect on space and people. 

He maintains a dual professional identity as Associate Professor of Lighting Design and Interdisciplinary Practice at Parsons School of Design in New York City and founding principal of Flux Studio.

In his presentation - Founding Practice: The Originators of Lighting Design - he considers how, from the dawn of the 20th century through the 1950s, electrical lighting became an increasingly important component of buildings. Still, it wasn't until later in the century that designers consistently realised the expressive potential of light and architecture. 

The increasing complexity of architecture, and the systems and considerations that it accommodates, gave rise to the related fields, including illuminating engineering and industrial design. 

In the 1960s, a limited group of individuals with diverse backgrounds ranging from theatrical lighting to psychology forged a new type of practice, an approach to lighting that wasn't motivated by quantitative calculations or beholden to the sale of equipment they recommended. 

These pioneers paved the way for a new role in the architectural process, a designer primarily responsible for the lighting outcomes on a project: a designer that masterminds the performance and implementation of light in a creative, technical, social, emotional, and physiological context.