Sometimes I think that as much as the “green” movement is about change its really about getting back to basics in design. Principles we all learned (or should have) at a young age. Sometimes I think it’s about remembering a little history.
I’ll give you an example related to light and see if you haven’t had a similiar experience. This morning like many in a New York winter, I emerged from the subway to enter into an exceedingly bright (if not frigid) midtown Manhattan morning. My eyes immediately adjusted to the bright sunlight and I made my three block walk to my building. Here’s where things get a bit dodgy. Walking through the glass doors my eyes always have a tendency to squint down a bit the lobby is always utterly dark in comparison to the bright morning light, the same lighting levels that seem entirely appropriate in the late evening, are far too low for my sunlight-exposed eyes. Then I enter the elevator and this entirely interior space is about 400% brighter than the lobby was, my eyes attempt to tap dance their pupils back down to adjust when all the sudden the elevator doors open and I’m on my floor. Halogen sources over-light surfaces of the office despite the perfectly adequate sunlight streaming in the windows.
Remind you of where you might work or play? Basic knowledge of our relationship to light would have dictated something much different and much less energy consumptive. Makes me wonder, when we design spaces are we designing them for the humans that will inhabit them? Or are we lost in our own aesthetic dreams?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi James,
Are you a lighting designer? If so I am glad.
I think you are dead on about spaces being designed to satisfy our own aesthetic dreams rather than for the people who will inhabit them.
Recently I have been revisiting Stewart Brands excellent book, How Buildings Learn, through the six part television series he created to accompany the work. One thing he points out is how seldom architects and designers actually revisit their buildings once they are completed, much less study them.
Not only are the choices made in the design phase often way off base for what will truly be needed but they also are very often executed in such a way as to make evolution and change difficult at best. Great post.
Barry
Barry,
Indeed I am a lighting designer.
It’s interesting you mention Stewart Brands and his work-on a parallel track- one of my inspirational companies is IDEO. Their design philosophy focusing on observation and diverse opinions has made them one of the pillars of product design. I try to port that philosophy to lighting design as much as possible. Really think about the way people are going to use buildings and spaces and then try to fulfill those needs in the most efficient way possible.