This year, we can say we are a truly international lighting design consultancy, having taken on two major residential projects in Miami. We often work in Europe, but this is the first time we've been commissioned to work in the USA.

The two detached, sea front properties are situated in Panama City Beach and Miami Beach and overlook the fast developing city of Miami. They are both in excess of 5000 square feet but have very distinct styles.

The house at Panama City Beach has a hint of Dutch colonial style about it and is being refurbished in a more traditional and eclectic fashion to reflect this. We were commissioned to design the lighting scheme for the spacious interior and to specify the architectural fittings.

The second property in North Venetian Way, Miami Beach is a highly contemporary villa with clean lines and lots of floor to ceiling glass. For this property we designed the lighting scheme for all areas - internal and external - and again specified the architectural fittings. Our brief was to create a lighting scheme to reflect the style of the property, to optimize the sea views, to allow for art to be displayed on most of the walls and to strikingly but subtly enhance the front of the house, the pool, spa and jetty outside.

One of the reasons the Florida-based designer and architect selected Sian Baxter Lighting Design to work on these projects is because, here in the UK, we have a better knowledge of, and experience in working with energy efficient lights. The fact that we were located over 4000 miles away didn’t cause a problem and disappointingly perhaps we didn’t even need to visit either property.