LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1

Design mentality
Why do we study light

1. Physics of light
Light and Electromagnetic Radiation
What is light?
Attributes of light
The color of light
Surface colors
Basic photometric principles
Transmission of light
Vision
The eye and brain
Visual performance
Lighting requirements
Glare
 LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Design Mentality

The basis for every lighting concept

is an analysis of the project

The tasks the lighting is expected to

fulfill

The conditions and special features of

a space or work surface.

Using the Brainstorm

No wrong ideas
Write it all down
Keep a record of ideas
Turn ideas into goals
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Design Mentality

The responsibility of the designer

Always be aware of your environment
Dissect the world around you
Recognize that everything is designed

Reverse engineering
Take something that works and figure out how it works
Put this knowledge to work to create a predictable effect

Reverse engineering from design

Step 1: Go into the world and experience design
Step 2: Take stock of your emotional state
Step 3: Identify what is at work to enhance your feelings
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Power and Purpose of Light

Why study light?

Experience comes from vision, vision comes from light

Light is an extremely efficient way of altering perception

Lighting decisions throughout the design process

The interior designer or architect who knows the space has the best chance at
creating the powerful light effects.

Bad lighting can ruin perfectly good design

LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Power and Purpose of Light

What decisions lead to great lighting design?

Light is responsible for

Lighting as mood
Active vs. Relaxed
Intimate vs. clinical

Lighting as instruction
Way finding
Location / geography
Time of Day
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Power and Purpose of Light
Behavioral response to light
instinctual versus learned or conditioned
phototropism / light responding
product of our need for visual information (as a hunter / gatherer)
Safety
Companionship
Comfort (fire)

If we control light, we control:

How people perceive a space
Where people go
How people feel

understand and master every tool available to us to provoke the

desired response in our designed environments
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Physics of Light

Electromagnetic radiation (EMR)

EMR is raw energy

no mass, no taste, no color
travels at : the speed of light
varies only in wavelengths
Wavelength is measured in
Nano-meters(10-9m)
can symbolized as tiny squiggly lines
vibrating through space
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Physics of Light

What is light

Our eyes can detect only a small

portion of the spectrum: so we call
this portion the visible spectrum

Because we detect this EMR we

name it light

The visible spectrum includes

radiation from about 380 Nano-
meters (violet) to 770 nano-meters
(red) in wavelength
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Physics of Light
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
The Physics of Light
SO where does radiation come from, and why do we detect only a small
portion of it?
The SUN has historically been our primary source of radiation
The sun emits almost every wavelength of EMR.
We would call this a very complete spectrum
Almost all of the suns radiation is blocked by our atmosphere
What types leak through and make it to the earths surface?
The visible spectrum, some IR and some UV
So we have adapted to detect and make use of these types of radiation
This is also why we have no defense mechanisms against the other type of EMR
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Light sources
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Attributes of light

Quantitative
how much light is needed
What type of lighting system
Qualitative
Information about the environment to be illuminated
How and who will use it
Style of architecture
Source color and color rendering
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
color of light
The fundamentals:

Light is electro-magnetic radiation in specific wavelengths detected by

our eyes
For each specific wavelength or combination of wavelengths we have
named our eye / brain response as a color

The three color theory:

Red
Green
Blue

Red + Green + Blue = White

R/G/B is 1/3 of all the three
then R + G + B = 1
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Color

Any color can be defined in terms of its redness, greenness and blueness.
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
surface colors

classification of surface colors by Munsell system.

1. Hue: the concept of color, using the common terms, red,
yellow, blue, etc., with transitional colors

2. Value (V) or lightness: the subjective measure of reflectance,

light or dark appearance, measured on a scale of 0 (absolute
black) to 10 (the perfect white).

3. Chroma or saturation: the fullness or intensity of color. All colors have

at least 10 classes (e.g. blue-green), but some colors
can be very strong, having a Chroma up to 18.
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
surface colors
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Basic photometric principles

Simple luminous system

LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
basics of lighting
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
basics of lighting
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Lighting Terminology

We quantify light as lumens

pieces of light

Lumens of light striking a surface = Illuminance

Expressed in candles on a surface area

Lumens of light leaving a surface in a specific direction in a

specific density = Luminance
related to the assessment of brightness
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Lighting Terminology
So it is helpful to get used to the proper preposition for each interaction

Lighting design point of view- illumination

Energy point of view luminous efficacy
Building design point of view - lumens
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Vision: The Eye

The mechanisms we use

Accommodation
focus at different distances
Adaptation
adjust for dark or bright
situations
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Fundamentals of Vision: The Eye
Cones

Active in high light levels (called Photopic vision)

Responsible for color vision (if you perceive color, you are
using cones)

Rods

Active in low light situations (called Scotopic vision)

Very sensitive to change and motion

Low perception of color

LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Fundamentals of Vision: The Eye

The brain sees, the eyes merely detect.

For human vision performance and revealing the world around us we are usually
concerned with white light
BUT white is a subjective experience (like all color) and our definition is
constantly changing. So we break it down in to two issues:
COMPLETENESS OF SPECTRUM & BALANCE OF SPECTRUM
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Color Science and Light Sources

Completeness of spectrum / CRI

The more wavelengths that come out
of a light source, the more opportunity
a surfaces has to reflect light

a measure of the complexity /

completeness of a light source : the
COLOR RENDERING INDEX or CRI
It is a numeric value ranging
from 0-100 (the higher the
better)
Historically the CRI is assigned
by experimenting on people
 LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Color Science and Light Sources

Balance of spectrum / Color temperature

when a light source gives of more of one

wavelength than another, than our brains
translation of the light as a slight color experience

We have devised a numeric description of the

color produced by the imbalance called
CORELATED COLOR TEMPERATURE
Expressed as a temperature in degrees
Kelvin K or Kelvins
Extracted from the behavior of black metals
as they are heated up: red to orange to yellow
to blue etc.
This behavior follows a predictable path
where green would appear we get a very pale
neutral
We use it mostly to help us describe the
fluorescent sources.
LIGHTING DESIGN LECTURE 1
Reading assignment:

1. We have learned to distinguish different combinations of radiation by

translating the detection experience into colors.
Plants are sensitive to red and People to green . . . WHY?
2. What is the lumen and what is candela? Try to understand the
concept behind this to words and there relation.

Reading material light and human life part I