Thai restaurants are as ubiquitous in Los Angeles as palm trees.

The London- and Edinburgh-based lighting design firm Speirs and Major Associates’ portfolio boasts a gamut of neon-hued urban landmarks, ranging from the Bridge of Aspiration in London to developments in Dubai.

While Foster + Partners was building a new home for the University of Toronto’s pharmacy school, the university commissioned Moriyama & Teshima to transform the 25-year-old building that the pharmacy school had just vacated, converting the sacred halls of academe into a spiritual center for the university community.

Look closer. That’s the way Janos Korban and Stefanie Flaubert approach their work.

Like shooting stars against a night sky—or a glowing game of pick-up sticks—thin rods of white light dynamically charge the black-box auditorium of the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum at UCLA.

To the designers at the Los Angeles–based firm Electroland, modern life is a video game.

Sylvain Bigot jokes, “I’m the bridge lighting designer.” Bigot, principal of Neo Light, a firm in Joué Lès Tours, France, has illuminated the Saint Satur Viaduct and the Pont de Montrichard, for which he was awarded first prize in the 2004 Light Competition, which is overseen by the French Ministry of Culture.

At Wu Jiao Plaza in Shanghai’s Yangpu District, the artist Zhong Song created an installation that dynamically melds architecture with lighting.

In Singapore, where seemingly innocuous gum chewing is prosecutable, a nightclub with an explicit drug theme seems impossible.

At the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at the University of Toronto, Foster + Partners has turned contextual design on its head.