President & Director of Lighting Design at Zinkon Creative Studio
Ardra brings nearly three decades of architectural lighting and technology design experience to Zinkon Creative Studio. A Certified Lighting Designer (CLD) and Professional Member of the IALD, she is known for balancing technical precision with creative clarity — a throughline in her work since she began designing professionally in 1997.
Her leadership in the lighting community includes serving on the IALD Board of Directors and chairing the Professional Advancement Group. Within the Illuminating Engineering Society, she chairs the IoT Connected Lighting Committee and contributes to the Progress Report and Rules Committees. Her expertise is widely recognized; she has presented at Lightfair International, IALD Enlighten Americas, the IES Annual Conference, NeoCon, and other national events.
Ardra’s work has earned numerous industry honors, including multiple IES Illumination Awards, Cooper Source Awards, GE Edison Awards, and recent recognition from the LIT Design Awards. She leads every project with principal‑level involvement from concept through final aiming, ensuring environments that are visually compelling, energy conscious, and thoughtfully integrated with architecture and technology.
Every historic building was lit once — by an owner, on a budget, with whatever technology existed at the time. Decades later, that same lighting is often why a beautifully preserved building reads as dark, tired, or forgotten after 5pm: fixtures failed, technology moved on and maintenance fell through. Lighting can be a preservation and revitalization tool, helping historic buildings remain visible, legible, valued, and active in contemporary community life. This session makes the case for relighting with real payoff, using real historic buildings (before and after) to illustrate what changed when the building was relit thoughtfully. Attendees will leave with a genuine sense of what's possible for their own projects and buildings and grounded in practical solutions. This course has been approve for 1.25 AIA HSW credits.