Warm white, neutral white, cold white: the design of new lighting fixtures for different working scenarios

Nowadays office lighting is fundamental for vision and for increasing wellness and working performances by considering the physiological and psycho-perceptual, social, behavioural and postural factors in relation to the working luminous environment. The design of the future workspaces should take into account the overall management of work and the social aspects that are established in the workplace. The work done in offices is becoming more nomadic, less tied to the needs of a fixed workstation and predetermined, but potentially executable everywhere in the office space or out of it, globally, in every part of the world. The work is an inherently social process which requires that people quickly pass from a focused job (individual tasks of processing, concentrating or relaxing moments), to team working (creative collaborations), to sharing activities (meeting with communications and presentations) . Each of these activities can be configured in different physical postures and requires different luminous atmospheres that are consistent with the context, the purpose and performed work activities. The use of new technological tools is inducing new ways to move and work in the office environment, in the micro space of the human body postures and in the macro environment of the entire workspace , : the multimodal use of different technological devices for reading and working (pc displays, keyboards, tablet etc.) is determining different visual field and tasks . Work environments nowadays require flexibility in the arrangement of furnishings and the increased possibility of reconfiguring the space, in addition to the need of managing the personal space in a situation where the job done individually is reduced in favour to shared and team activities . Recent studies of office future trends reveal the importance of creating healthy spaces in which workers can be “energized” or “relaxed”, passing from concentration to relaxation, where they can suspend their activities for periods of “daydreaming” to refresh mentally and to be more productive in the long term