The Human and Social Dimension of Urban Lightscapes

In recent years, the human and social dimension of urban lightscape has become a new theme of interest both of research and design practice in the lighting domain. The focus of this book is to explore new criteria and characteristics of the human and social-scale lighting by considering human psychology in the design of the lighting of modern nocturnal cities. The book identifies a new area of lighting design research and practice that focus on the nocturnal urban experience of people in terms of emotional and cognitive perception along with behaviours to achieve more accessible, sociable, hospitable and sustainable cities. The recent technological advent of Solid-State Lighting (SSL) and digital control systems are envisioning new possible intelligent applications for urban lighting connected to the wider concept of Smart Cities. This technological transformation could drive a radical and meaningful change of the contemporary cities at night when adding social value to the urban experience. By exploring the human- and social-scale lighting design criteria, the urban lighting design practice could provide good quality lighting: visual performances, visual comfort, security and safety perception, visual ambiance and social experiences. To assess these psychological aspects of lighting design from the human and social perspective, this book identifies and compares new tools and research methodologies for knowledge acquisition when tackling with complex issues about the relationship of lighting, people and city. Book Content The first section deals with the topic of human and social urban lighting through an extensive literature review that spans from urban, lighting and environmental psychology studies. The first chapter reports a brief overview of the importance of public spaces for wellbeing with the purpose to situate the social dimension of urban lighting in a broader theoretical and cultural context. The second chapter presents a critical and systematic literature review about the human and social-oriented lighting criteria of urban outdoors. The third chapter reflects on the methodologies to explore the affective and social appraisals and behaviours of laypersons concerning the lighting design and luminous atmospheres of the nocturnal urban environment. The second section of the book presents a series of applicative studies elaborated by assessing, analysing, simulating, designing and testing urban lighting parameters, toward an in-depth understanding of the influence of urban lighting in terms of luminous atmosphere perception, positive social affect, social enhancement, accessibility and hospitability of urban lightscapes. The forth chapter presents a procedure for the analysis, design and post-installation evaluation of an in-situ experience of the human-scale urban lightscape. The fifth chapter presents the research results related to the influence of lighting on impressions of public outdoor spaces through a virtual experience. The sixth chapter explores two case studies of interactive experience prototyping that has been designed as experimental lighting probes and has been conducted both in the field and in the laboratory. The seventh chapter moves from design research to design practice showing the results of a practice based/educational experience focused on the development of social-oriented lighting solutions in a specific urban context of application. Intended Readership The book aims to extend the knowledge about the spatial experience of human-scale lighting in outdoors, proposing a multidisciplinary qualitative and quantitative methodology to be applied in the lighting design and research and influencing lighting practice and education. In doing so, the book is dedicated to educators that seek to unlock the traditional perspective of urban and lighting design disciplines; to lighting design researchers that need to feed their activities with new methods and inspiration; to lighting practitioners, both professionals and students, that aim to deepen their knowledge about the human and social dimension of urban lightscapes. The book explores the topic both through a theoretical background, methods and tools and with a research through design approach, to test the theories through applicative research and design examples.