Envisioning Community Engagement in Smart Lighting Design

Abstract

Smart Lighting is widely viewed as a means to reduce energy use, streamline city services and lower maintenance costs of public lighting. These are valid perspectives and useful pursuits, but they leave a blind spot that needs urgent attention: how the application of Smart Lighting technologies could affect and benefit people in public space. Illumination as it is currently deployed is mostly utilitarian. Creative and innovative opportunities are often overlooked. It is critical for designers to reclaim their role in this technological sea-change to combine the operational benefits of Smart Lighting with benefits for people on the ground. Involving the community should in our view be part of this process. Our goal is to unearth techniques and design approaches so that Smart Lighting becomes a flexible tool for community-informed night experiences.