Charlotte Fernández
UKIMEA Press Office,Leeds
Arup launches ‘Cities Alive: Rethinking the Shades of Night’ - a new report that explores the constantly changing lights of the city and how they shape our experiences from day to night.
This forward-thinking study, undertaken by Arup’s Foresight + Research + Innovation and Lighting Design teams, positions citizens at the heart of night-time lighting design in order to create intelligent environments that adapt and react to enable 24 hour cities. It analyses existing research and trends in urban lighting design to show how rapidly growing populations, expanding cities and the emergence of new technologies, create opportunities to rethink the design and function of cities at night.
Some of the more innovative elements in the report aren’t the new technologies themselves – such as LEDs or OLEDs – but how this smart technology adapts and responds to the changing nightscape.
“In the past, the attitude of ‘the more light the better’ has led to a general abundance of light, especially in urban areas, but both light and darkness are equally important to our health and well-being. With the shift towards 24 hour cities, we should not aim to simply recreate the day at night, but instead, we need to carefully consider the role of night-time lighting. We need to design our cities to change depending on the time of night and the different usage patterns of the public realm after dark – articulating what we call the ‘different shades of night’.
Florence Lam, Global Lighting Design Leader, Arup
The report highlights that we need to make human centred night-time design a priority in urban development, and one that should be considered from the earliest planning stages. It proposes that night-time lighting should play a more active role in shaping sustainable cities that are more enjoyable, more sociable, safer, healthier and easier to get around.
“Night-time is fundamentally different from daytime. In many hotter climates, it provides the best conditions for people to use outdoor urban spaces. So it deserves its own design approach, and thinking harder and smarter about street lighting is a vital part of this.
Leni Schwendinger, Lighting Designer and Urbanist, Arup
‘Cities Alive: Rethinking the Shades of Night’ is the second report in the firm’s ‘Cities Alive’ series. This series takes a holistic approach to the planning and design of urban spaces in order to meet future demands on our cities.