The architecture of light: architectural lighting design concepts and techniques. A textbook of procedures and practices for the architect, interior designer and lighting designer pdfdrive com

Light as Instruction
Through experience and conditioning, humans have also developed movement and location responses that we derive directly from light. We use light to instruct us where to go, what areas to move toward and what paths to follow. We read the angle and intensity of sunlight to tell us where we are geographically. Designers can increase light levels to define areas that people belong in and subsequently leave dark those areas in which people do not belong. Colors of light can be used as cues to stop or proceed. Flashing light can be used to grab attention or warn people away. These effects all rely on the controllable aspects of light discussed earlier. To make use of these powerful responses, the designer must also consider specific shapes, specific patterns, and specific movements of light.
ATTRACTION TO LIGHT: PHOTOTROPISM
The most powerful human response to light is the most simple: it is the fundamental attraction that humans have toward light and lighted spaces. Just like moths to a flame, we drift towards areas of brightness. This unconscious desire is significant because it is instinctual. It differs from our response to many other elements of design that are a product of taste, trend or favor. We are told that the human affinity for light is a mechanism of survival. This instinct has a name: we call it Phototropism (Latin for light-attracted). This primal response means that at the most fundamental level of design, by simply putting light in the right place, we can help direct people’s path of experience and encourage their interaction with the space. Many of the lighting effects we will employ rely on this one simple premise of human behavior.
Figure 2.5 When put to use correctly, lighted surfaces serve to make way-finding intuitive.
In order to appreciate the effectiveness of using light to attract people and guide their experience, it is helpful to investigate why humans may have developed this type of response. On a very basic level, it is about vision. The human visual system is very finely tuned for translating light. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It is safe to say that seeing is one of the fastest ways to learn about the world around us. It is because of this
dependency that our brains are always encouraging us to pursue areas that have more visual information, that is, lighted areas. The brain believes that the more we see, the better our life experience will be. No doubt, there is also the residual belief that the more we can see, the more likely we are to find food, shelter, companionship, and the less likely we are to be eaten by predators.
When we investigate all of these emotional and behavioral effects that are unique to light, we see that there is much more to light than just sufficient quantity. In the realm of architecture and design, we can do much more than simply add light to a space so that people can function and perform visual tasks.
Throughout this text, the knowledge that we will be exploring is based on making decisions about what we want light to do in a space.
Anything we introduce as a design ingredient has to have justification for being, so we justify light by identifying the many benefits it serves in an environment. We then study the different types of light over which we have control. Lighting design then becomes the process of conceptualizing what light should be accomplishing in a space and how and where that light should be delivered.