176 TECHNOLOGY / FUTURES
HIGH SPIRITS
This year’s Urban Spirit of Light event highlighted research proposing a new modular system that could bring life to the urban nightscape.
This October, an invited audience of lighting industry professionals came together for the Urban Spirit of Light event, held at the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design in London. The evening was the second in a series of annual seminars sup- ported by the Megaman Charity Trust Fund as part of its commitment to research in the areas of education and environmental protection.
The centre point of the evening was a talk by Megan Charnley and Tom Jarvis, two Research Associates at the RCA, who presented findings from their two-year research project on the Boundary Estate, an area of housing in the east London borough of Shoreditch.
Their work – published in the book ‘In the Shade: Lighting Urban Communities’ - took on the issue of uneven light distribution in cities. It focused in on both light pollution and unlit environments and the associated
effects on local trade and social cohesion. The study aimed to look at ways of balanc- ing energy efficiency with a sense of iden- tity and then develop realistic proposals for improving the nighttime environment. The project began with a series of work- shops that allowed different groups within the community to explain their percep- tion of the area. Those consulted included elderly residents who had spent their whole life on the estate, the ‘Bandstand Boys’ (a group of men in their teens and early twenties, who would gather around the bandstand at the centre of the estate), and the Boundary Women’s Project. The process resulted in a proposal, dubbed the Night- Time Neighbourhood Network, to create sympathetically illuminated pathways and nodal points to connect together the com- munity and encourage use of open space after sundown.
The next stage was to find a cost effec-
Tests using the prototype LED tube system were successful in transforming the character of underused spaces on the Boundary Esate. The installation of illuminated goalposts turned the dark, foreboding recreation area (above) into a welcoming space after nightfall (top).
tive, energy efficient, location-appropriate solution. With much of the street furniture (hand rails, bike stands etc) constructed from a scaffold-style modular tubing sys- tem, it was decided this would be an ideal start point for any luminaire design. By in- troducing a tubular LED lighting system into objects like the goal posts in the recreation area, local young people were able to make use of the facilities. The benefits of this have been felt across the community. As one local resident commented, “The installation has made a real difference to the area, it feels much safer at night and the boys seem happier.”
Plans are now afoot to translate the success of the prototype piece into a viable product that can be rolled out in other areas.
www.hhc.rca.ac.uk www.megamanlighting.com
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