Daylighting design refers to the evolution
Human factors, technical evaluation, aesthetics, and environmental impact are some of the most important aspects to keep in mind during the lighting design process. Although the formal profession of lighting design is still relatively young, advances in technology and human factors research have allowed the discipline to evolve in recent years to offer a more comprehensive contextual understanding of the medium.
The term “lighting design” applies to a variety of related professional practices that involve the applications and performance characteristics of light:
Architectural lighting design refers to the design of natural and man made lighting systems for function and/or effect within or related to an architectural construct, exterior site, or urban context.
Theatrical lighting design refers to the temporary installation of portable electric lighting devices for stage and theater productions.
Daylighting design refers to the evaluation of a building site location, building orientation, shape, configuration, and physical design in order to maximize the functional performance characteristics of sunlight. & Lighting product design refers to the aesthetic and technological development of lighting system components for decorative or architectural application within built environments.
Specialty lighting design refers to the technical study of signage, signal, or display lighting as part of a unique industry such as manufacturing, automotive, airport, or transportation systems. Although lighting design can refer to the design of a discrete physical device (as in lighting product design or specialty lighting design), it usually involves the interaction of light with other architectural materials and surfaces.
Light is almost always integral to our sensory experience of any built environment. For this reason, architectural lighting design is the most broadly recognized category within the field, and often encompasses aspects of the other categories (for example, daylighting design is often an important component of architectural lighting design). Thus, for the sake of this definition, architectural lighting design will be the primary point of reference.
Human factors, technical evaluation, aesthetics, and environmental impact are some of the most important aspects to keep in mind in the lighting design process. Arguably the most important consideration to keep in mind when designing with light is human interaction: the perceptual, physiological, and psychological impacts on the user.
Our anatomy is wired to respond chemically to specific environmental conditions that include daily cycles and seasonal transitions associated with light. These biological responses are a cumulative result of cultural experiences learned through the course of our individual lives, as well as universally shared characteristics that go back thousands of years to early evolution. For example, exposure to sunlight triggers specific chemical changes essential to normal biological functions including sleep patterns.
The relatively recent evolution of man-made light has significantly altered these biologically established patterns, which could have a noticeable impact on long-term health issues.
In recent years, as scientific research has revealed the direct impact of light on our health and psychological well-being, human factors has become an increasingly important consideration in lighting design. Most definitions associated with lighting design acknowledge the duality between the technical/scientific and the creative/ artistic.
There is often a distinction made in architectural lighting between lighting design and illumination engineering; lighting design is thought to favor aesthetics while illumination engineering is thought to favor the technical. It should be noted that the authors believe this professional distinction to be somewhat artificial and unfortunate.
A creative solution that does not meet technical needs fails, as does a solution that merely solves technical problems yet offers no aesthetic spatial enhancement. An emphasis on technical evaluation frequently results in project types being lumped together into common categories based upon quantifiable task-driven standards and code regulations which make little to no allowance for any deviation based upon unique characteristics.
Several organizations the International Commission on Illumination (CIE), the Illumination Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), and the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) for instance publish categorical “recommended standards” which are intended to be used as reference for designers and engineers.
Unfortunately, these generalized technical standards are frequently misinterpreted and used as a unilateral minimum requirement. When such a literal translation is made as the first order of magnitude, the common result is a solution that meets task requirements but does not extend beyond this statistical problem solving.
The programmatic needs, specific task requirements, client profile, and site conditions of any lighting project need to be considered in each design solution. However, the act of designing implies an application of creative artistic practice in conjunction with planning. In lighting design, this may include aspects of composition, organization, finish, tone, and scale of the luminaires themselves, as well as the resulting spatial illumination.
These aesthetic choices are bound to directly impact considerations associated with human factors and technical criteria as well. Each designer is bound to make different aesthetic decisions which will result in unique design solutions.
It is critical for the design process to embrace diversity and challenge historical conventions in order to reveal new opportunities for future practitioners to reference. In addition to the physiological, technical, and aesthetic aspects of lighting design, there has been considerable emphasis more recently on sustainability.
In this context, sustainability encompasses more traditional concerns for energy efficiency, but also the impact of light and lighting components/hardware on the environment. Lighting systems constitute a large portion of the overall energy consumption of a building, and are often inefficient. They can also have a negative environmental impact through light trespass and light pollution, as well as the disposal of lighting products, mercury-containing lamps in particular.
These environmental factors need to be integrated and balanced with all of the other considerations noted above in the design process. Architectural lighting design may be executed by a lighting designer, independent specialist, or any individual practicing in related occupations such as electrical engineering, architecture, interior design, and manufacturing. It is not so much the label, but rather the capabilities that define the practitioner. Having said this, however, it should be understood that while many of the individuals practicing in related occupations may possess a basic knowledge of conventional applications and/or aesthetics, they frequently lack an awareness of the most current technologies.
Additionally, the specifics of the practitioner’s professional origin commonly results in a particular bias toward their primary area of practice.
For example, engineers that practice lighting design and have the basis of their design process founded within parallel confines of structural, mechanical, and hydraulic systems training are accustomed to viewing referenced standards as “minimum” criteria based upon life safety or critical load factors.
In many cases, their projects are “over-engineered” by a significant margin. These kinds of biases may yield an unbalanced design result that leans too heavily toward a focus on aesthetics, technical study, or product sales, rather than a complex attentiveness to the human, technical, and compositional considerations associated with light. The lighting design profession has evolved in part to offer a more comprehensive contextual understanding of the medium.