We need to say no to overly illuminated urban environments that do nothing for our sense of wellbeing
Too bright, too dim, too much glare, we have all been exposed to the negative effects of bad lighting design in a city – you don’t have to be a lighting designer to call it out. Conversely, we have all experienced good lighting, even if we were only faintly aware of it at the time. Why do we gravitate to the old town when we visit a new place? Because people naturally crave visually interesting architecture, with soft, human scale lighting that works in harmony with the streetscape.
Poorly lit urban environments are a byproduct of the modern age. Somewhere along the way, architecture ceased to be the all-important subject and buildings wrongly became a blank canvas to be illuminated. Public realm lighting became a dispassionate and disjointed art form, with lighting designers often brought in as an afterthought or a bolt on. Where did this lead us? Cities became progressively overly illuminated and over saturated. Buildings entered an arms race with their neighbours to stand out against the crowd, usually to the detriment of the overall quality of light.
According to the UN, 68% of the world’s population is predicted to live in urban areas by 2050, so the role of developers, urban planners, architects, landscape designers and lighting designers as guardians of well-designed cities has come into sharp focus. As cities have swelled to accommodate an influx of people and rapid overdevelopment, quality of life, community, and wellbeing have been drastically overlooked. The magnitude of the built environment has superseded the needs of the individual, and cities have been an unhealthy reality for the people that visit and inhabit these spaces.
Cities should provide an actively positive experience for their inhabitants.
In the past decade, city-wide masterplans, with specific lighting masterplans, have begun to tackle and alleviate these issues. The notion of a unified city with an overarching design strategy no longer feels like a luxury – architects and designers are increasingly being asked to revitalize existing districts or given the scope to plan for an entire new city.
The power that we have as lighting designers to influence urban spaces as they transition from day, to evening, to night, should not be undervalued. In the public realm, the hardscape is always the hardscape, the façade is always the façade, the planting is always the planting – what changes is the lighting. Clients are starting to understand the value that lighting brings to a city and how a good lighting masterplan can allow you to manage public light, support human activity, improve safety, and encourage responsible use of light.
Over the past decade, the industry’s approach to urban lighting has been largely rooted in the immediate and the physiological, rather than the long term and the psychological impact of our designs. Exterior illumination has been primarily about how we enhance a city’s appeal and liveability by using light to highlight significant views, define key routes, accentuate buildings of interest, and improve permeability. At the same time, designers have refined their ability to mitigate glare, minimise light spill and use tone, contrast, and shadow to add character and provide visual relief.
Whilst this is undoubtedly progress, we need to look beyond simply exacerbating the negative effects of poor lighting design. Given the high volume of people living and spending time in cities (and the fact that this figure set to rise) our benchmark for success can’t be a city that is not harmful to its inhabitants. Surely, we need to go further than this by supporting both physical and mental health through our designs.
The Restorative City
This point leads us nicely onto the concept of a Restorative City, an idea that I was introduced to courtesy of Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing (Jenny Roe and Layla McCay, 2021). The book outlines a framework for urban design, centred around the principle of a restorative city that helps us regulate emotion and mental wellbeing, whilst managing the stress and demands of everyday life.
It’s a captivating concept that paves the way for a new paradigm, where designers pledge our own Hippocratic Oath for the built environment that aims higher than do no harm – we need to move beyond neutral or passive, and design cities and spaces that are actively positive for all.
Realising this ambition means we need to be unequivocal about the fact that lighting designers cannot exist in isolation. We need to work collaboratively across other disciplines to design cities that are infinitely better for people. The only way to achieve this is when light works seamlessly across every pillar of a city – every single element of a city that brings people together to connect, socialise and play. Even though lighting is not one of these pillars, it can sit across each strand and bring them together in the spirit of a more cohesive city.
Green
Soft landscape and views of greenery need to be celebrated and highlighted through the lighting scheme, providing space for social interaction, so people can explore and enjoy these spaces as part of evening and night-time activities.
Blue
Water features are an integral part of the full multisensory mix and should be accentuated as an illumination focal point, designed to draw people in and create a therapeutic point of congregation after dark.
Sensory
The visual sense contributes a great deal to how we perceive a space, influencing not only its look and feel, but other attributes such as wayfinding. Once the daylight fades away, artificial illumination can help reduce monotony through visually diverse spaces. It can also be harnessed to evoke a positive sensory experience and encourage feelings of familiarity or the desire to explore.
Neighbourly
Beautifully illuminated spaces can reinforce a sense of social cohesion or inspire people to make use of their outdoor spaces together. Parks should be accessible after hours and feel like safe environments, with a strong sense of community – warm and welcoming light is key. In regions where climate prevents people from coming together during the day, great lighting can make a neighbourhood more useable and inviting after dark.
Active
Supporting cognitive and emotional wellbeing through mobility and making spaces usable after dark is becoming increasingly important in the urban realm, therefore we need lighting that is appropriate in terms of colour, level, and scale for pedestrian-led spaces, cycle zones and transition areas.
Playable
Designers can leverage the creative power of light to make a place a magnet during the evening hours, transforming the environment through techniques like dynamic or projected light to encourage outdoor play and activities through immersion and interaction with the city.
Inclusive
Light must always be a non-discriminatory tool. We need to get much better at designing schemes that give everyone the same ability to explore and experience an urban environment. For the partially sighted, this might be realized through the way we illuminate a vertical surface to make a space more usable. For a neurodiverse person, it could mean providing spaces of visual relief through comfortable, low-level lighting.
Artificial lighting is always there for humans, the natural world can live without it.
There will always be valid reasons for implementing an artificial lighting, but we need to be mindful that every intervention should enrich the lives of the people spending time in these spaces. Bright and uniform isn’t the way to do it.
We need to adopt a holistic and empathetic approach to lighting design that improves the ‘lived experience’ of a city. When you zoom out and look at the role that light is plays across the urban landscape, it should be working across multiple levels – creating a sense of identity and scale, improving wayfinding, highlighting key spaces and moments of visual interest, humanising public areas and encouraging social connection.
With the volume of people spending substantial time in cities, it is no longer desirable or aspirational that living in the built environment causes us no harm; we must use light to ensure that cities are actively positive places for everyone who lives and spends time in them.
