Reviewing the Role of Outdoor Lighting in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

The technological development, quantitative increase and qualitative design of urban lighting have succeeded in improving the safety and comfort of urban spaces. In this context, dark and dimly lit places appear as undesirable, even dangerous. However, the disadvantages of overlighting are increasingly being identified. On the other hand, darkness has well-being effects and aesthetic values in urban environments. The Safe and Sustainable Darkness project studies the frameworks for dimmer urban lighting: how to find room for lower lighting levels and darker places, respecting the diverse use of spaces and the values and experiences of city residents. In the article, we present participatory process for design and implementation of safe and sustainable urban darkness. The expertise and understanding of two different groups is of interest. Interviews of various professionals in the city organization reveal how illuminated and un-illuminated places are perceived from an administrative perspective. Inhabitants and users of urban space share their insight of the meanings, potential and context of the existing and future dark places. By combining the research material from interviews, crowdsourcing, workshops and evaluated pilot installation, we propose a co-design methodology to create enjoyable dimly lit and un-illuminated urban spaces.

Section: Rationale For Designing Urban Lighting and Designing Urban D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-designing safe and sustainable darkness for northern urban places

Vuorenmaa,

Pihlajaniemi,

Parhankangas

2024

“…Of the UN's 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), six of them (3: Good health and well-being, 7: Affordable and clean energy, 11: Sustainable cities and communities, 13: Climate action, 14: Life below water and 15: Life on land) have been identified as having relevant synergies with outdoor lighting [1]. This includes various aspects such as human health and well-being, safety, restoration, socialization, ecosystems, biodiversity, and energy efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping with darkness: residents’ experience of reduced outdoor lighting in neighbourhoods

Mattsson,

Smidt-Hart

2024

Despite ongoing replacement of old lighting installations with new energy-efficient light emitting diodes, the energy crisis has led to the implementation of strategies for reducing energy use for public outdoor lighting in neighbourhood environments. This would save money and reduce light pollution; however, the situations should be evaluated from the residents’ perspective. This paper presents a pilot study, which aimed to explore how residents experience and respond to reduced outdoor lighting in their neighbourhoods during dark hours, by applying the adapted Human-Environment Interaction model to understand the relation between outdoor lighting quality, neighbourhood quality and local independent mobility from the residents’ perspective. The pilot study was based on a short questionnaire (N =76, 29 males, 47 females, Mage = 66.66 years) and telephone or online interviews (N = 13, 5 males, 8 females, Mage = 68.08 years) with the residents living in the neighbourhood areas, in Southern Sweden, where strategies were employed for reducing the use of public outdoor lighting. Data were collected between February and March 2023. Overall, the results affirmed the important role of outdoor lighting quality in residents’ experience of neighbourhood environments and local independent mobility (i.e. the ability of residents to walk or move around on their own in their neighbourhood area), whereas the effect of reduced outdoor lighting was rather insignificant. The interviews further showed different experiences of the reduced outdoor lighting and how the residents coped with the lighting conditions by using solutions (i.e. headlamps, flashlights, bike lamps and reflectors), and that high-level perceived safety from crime in the neighbourhoods was found to play an important role in local independent mobility during dark hours. The adapted conceptual model allowed for the evaluation of outdoor lighting conditions considering both internal and external factors from the residents’ perspective, and could provide a basis for discussion about potential changes in public outdoor lighting.

“…Historically, the introduction of electric lighting profoundly changed the human way of life, allowing for a broad range of activities previously confined to daylight conditions [8]. Today, a growing body of research shows that benefits of outdoor electric lighting also come with conflicting goals for a sustainable development, including immense costs associated with energy use (SDG 7) and light pollution, negatively impacting ecological systems, wildlife (SDG 14 & 15), and human physical and psychological well-being (SDG 3) [1,[9][10][11]. Hence, electric lighting must carefully balance the needs of light and darkness with consideration for human and non-human welfare [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

People’s conceptual environmental appraisals of urban space in daylight and electric light

Johansson,

Tsiakiris,

Rahm

2024

Urban spaces should be resilient, inclusive and safe for all residents including children, elderly and vulnerable groups. This implies that urban planning, management and design should provide public spaces that support human needs of active mobility, social interaction and psychological restoration across seasonal and diurnal variation in natural light. Environmental psychology postulates that an understanding of how people experience or appraise an environment is a critical component in the relationship between urban design and human behaviour. In this conceptual paper we propose and discuss overarching (visual) impressions of the environment (environmental appraisals) that could be utilized to deepen the understanding of how people experience urban green spaces under different lighting conditions. In a certain setting, people respond to specific components of the environment; such perceived molecular environmental qualities make up the overall impression of the setting, and shape critical human-environment transactions fundamental to human well-being. The perceived stimuli are considered to act together to form the perceptual basis for higher order, molar aspects, so called conceptual environmental appraisals. We introduce Küller’s human-environment interaction model and Brunswik’s lens model to describe conceptual environmental appraisals. Recognising urban forests as important settings for physical active mobility, social interaction, and psychological restoration, we outline the theoretical underpinnings of three conceptual environmental appraisals: prospect – refuge pertaining to the perceived safety of the environment, environmental preferences, and the perceived restorative potential of the environment. The appraisals have been shown to be relevant in studies on electric lighting in urban space, and possible to assess by means of observer-based assessments also among children, elderly and vulnerable groups. Assessment outcomes may inform discussions on conflicting goals for sustainable development with regard to people’s health and well-being, energy use, light pollution and the welfare of other species in urban planning, management and design.