The art of lighting design spans the globe, with stunning examples of the way in which lighting can transform and breathe life into buildings, objects, spaces and landmarks found all over the world. But where can we find the best examples of this? Is this a question we can even answer? Like all art, lighting design can be inspiring, beautiful and emotive, but it can also be divisive, and can invariably fall victim to subjective opinion. How then, can anyone claim one region to be “best”?

Harnessing my experiences of covering the latest and greatest in lighting design inside the pages of arc magazine, I open the investigation, taking viewers on a whistle-stop tour around the world in a quest to find out who reigns supreme in the Lighting Design World Cup.