Conceiving the nocturnal city through strategical and tactical urban lighting practices

The article reviews the importance of the nocturnal dimension of cities in the urban planning studies as a space-time condition capable of favoring the contamination between strategical and tactical lighting practices and the need to design the nocturnal landscape with a social approach that considers the luminous appearance of the city and active citizenship participation as a bottom up planning. Urban lighting is designed as a resource with enormous potential to improve nighttime identity, stimulate local economies, promote accessibility and mobility in the city after dark, improve the social interactions during the night and, in general, the quality of life in urban areas. The analysis highlights the strategic use of urban lighting in urban planning through the presentation and description of methods constituted by a lighting masterplans strategy and participative tactical tools developed with a multidisciplinary background. From the merge between urban planning, lighting design and social studies the nighttime city can be regenerated under a sustainable design process