Steven Rosen, FIALD, CLD, founder and CEO of Available Light, has announced his retirement, closing out a lighting design career that spans more than 40 years and more than a thousand projects.
The firm said Rosen's legacy rests less on any single assignment than on the community of designers, collaborators, clients, students and friends he influenced—and learned from—along the way.
Rosen began with a plan to spend a life of design in the theater, where nothing brought him greater joy than interpreting a dramatic work with light. He supplemented his early theatrical career by lighting trade show exhibits alongside one of his mentors, Rick Chamberlain. A chance trade show collaboration with museum exhibit designer Nick Paffett led to his first museum commission, the Virginia Air & Space Center. A few years later, an encounter with architect Bob Schaeffner brought his first architectural lighting assignment: a new earth sciences building at Amherst College.
That progression—theater, trade shows, museums, architecture—shaped the philosophy behind Available Light. Rosen built the firm on the belief that unrestrained theatrical storytelling could serve a more expansive audience. What began in 1992 as a single drafting table in his living room apartment has grown into a national lighting design practice with six studios and almost 40 people, with a portfolio spanning museum exhibition, architecture, themed entertainment, trade show exhibits and immersive environments around the world. His wife, Susan Gochenour, believed in the vision and signed on as the young firm's first managing director.
Rosen won the first-ever IALD Radiance Award for Available Light's work on Building 7 at MIT. He received Lifetime Achievement awards from both LDI/Live Design and The Edison Report, became a Fellow of the IALD, and was named to the 2025 blooloop 50 Top Museum Influencer list.
Asked about his tenure, Rosen pointed to the team rather than the awards. "My greatest achievement has been assembling this team of passionate, talented, and hard-working professionals at Available Light," he said. "Serving as their leader has been an honor and a privilege." He said that recognizing the firm has multiple layers of people ready for the challenge of running it, he decided the time is now to hand over the reins and cheer on their success, describing himself as "a very proud Founder."
Available Light said the practice Rosen built will continue to evolve, push boundaries and create meaningful experiences through light. Founded in 1992, the firm describes its work as crafting compelling, innovative, sustainable and insightful lighting design solutions across museum experiences, contemporary architecture, themed entertainment attractions and trade show exhibits.