2.1 User analysis

Fig. 4.6 Entrance with additional lighting Fig. 4.7 Entrance without additional lighting

Highlighting the entrance

On the analysis we had conducted, that the hidden position and darkness of the entrance were one of the main problems that had to do with the discoverability of The Railway City. In other words, the wayfinding in the area was dysfunctional. On the interviews and general discussions, we had found out, that people either don’t notice the tunnel or they don’t know where it leads to. As we wanted to have people notice the entrance better and feel safer around the entrance, we experimented with shining light on the area with different shapes and colours. We ended up mostly discussing the illumination of the vertical surfaces, because we wanted to focus on surfaces that would be visible from distance. Horizontal surfaces are most noticeable from close by. Shining a coloured light on the fence above the entrance made the entrance area (fig. 4.6) more noticeable and interesting when observing from distance. However, we were worried if the fence was an attractive design element, especially on seasons when there are no leaves. We also noticed that the indirect light that was bounced off the entrance wall seemed to provide sufficient illumination for the stairs and bicycle ramp too. Especially compared to the original setting where the level of illumination on the bicycle ramp is a round zero lux.

Fig. 4.8 On the left, a setting created by the project team. The blue colour is the interpretation of the camera about the poor RGB white, not part of the design suggestion. On the right the original setting. Fig. 4.9 Fake skylight created by pointing an RGB battery light up to a white surface to create a diffuse indirect light downwards.

Pools of light

One of the design ideas that had kept with us since the start was to transform the sealed “skylight openings” into fake skylights. The problem with this idea was, that the openings are rather distant from each other. When we simulated the idea of these fake skylights with the battery lights, we created pools of light with the length of 5 meters in the ground, and dark areas with the length of 7 meters in between them. The fixture that would be used on the final design would be different, but the dimensions should stay approximately the same. However interesting we found this rhythm of light and dark to be, the patches of darkness were too big and too dark. The luminosity of the dark areas was almost non-existent, and the tunnel didn’t feel very safe. This problem would have to be tackled in the design by presenting another light source for the dark areas. Doing the physical experiment reinforced the design concept by shoving us, that these fake skylights do add feelings of spaciousness and visual interest. The lights helped in creating an illusion that the space would continue more upwards, compared to the original setting that doesn’t highlight these openings. Although the colour rendering of the RGB white was very poor, we could still see that there was a lot of potential with better fixtures to have the openings feel like actual daylight openings. The fig. 4.10, render done in 3D modeling software Blender, shows in a bigger scale and non-misleading colour, what is the effect we want to achieve. After having conducted experiments on the “pools of light” concept in the form of digital renderings and physical mock-up lighting experiments and the project team felt confident about the idea, a 1:25 scale model (fig. 4.11) was created for further validation and upcoming experiments with interactive lighting design.

Fig. 4.10: Render created in 3D modeling software Blender Fig. 4.11: 1:25 scale model extended in Photoshop

Non-uniformity

Whereas most of the previously mentioned design ideas have been based on case studies, personal preferences and artistic views of the design team, part of the design development was conducting a scientific experiment based on evidence. However wonderful it would have been to experiment with all the ideas on a scientific basis, it would have been a very time-consuming process. Therefore, one narrowed down and specific topic was chosen for the experiment. (Arboe Harild, M., Nichita, A., Ruohonen, S., Samaras, A., 2021). The topic the design team chose to work with, was the preferred amount of lighting uniformity in pedestrian tunnels. For this purpose, a set of renderings were created to illustrate different densities of ceiling-recessed downlights. Regarding the length of shadowy parts of the tunnel, one of the renderings, the Scenario 3: 12m shown in Fig. 4,12, was somewhat similar to the “pools of light” concept that the design team has been working with. The conclusion for the experiment was, that positive attributes such as safety, comfort and spaciousness, were more often linked to the settings with short distances between the luminaires than to the settings with long distances between the luminaires. As the main differences between these simulations were the level of lighting uniformity and the number of visible luminaires, it could be said that high lighting uniformity and high number of visible luminaires was preferred for the respondents in this occasion. However, the experiment also gave a result of the experience of visual interest to be more linked to the scenarios with longer distances between the luminaires. To connect the experiment with the design under development, it is noticeable that the experiment didn’t directly work for our favor. The scenario where the lights were placed within 12m distances from each other, was evaluated as the least comfortable, the second least safe, and the second least spacious. However, it was evaluated as the most visually interesting out of all the scenarios. The distance between the luminaires in the tunnel is fixed, because we cannot move the skylight opening structures. Therefore, we will work on enhancing the evaluations of safety, comfort and spaciousness by other means than the distance between the luminaires. As the results also indicate, that higher level of brightness and uniformity are favorized when reaching for safety and comfort, we will increase the uniformity and brightness with another luminaire. Scenario 1: 3m

Scenario 2: 6m

Scenario 3: 12m

Scenario 4: 15m

Fig. 4.12: Fig. Simulations used in evidence-based lighting experiment, the number describes the distance between the luminaires. Fig. 4.13 Sketches of the form of the interactive tracks.

Fig. 4.14 Train tracks from close and far. Source: Pinterest

Interactive train tracks

After we had settled with the idea of creating an interactive installation that would promote the historical heritage of The Railway City, the first issue was to define the form. We were persistent on keeping the idea of trains and train tracks with us, but several of the ideas were turned down since they felt too obvious and childish. The challenge became to somehow communicate the idea of train tracks in a subtle way. Inspiration was drawn from photos of train tracks and descriptive words, such as industrial, dynamic and strong. We sketched several ideas that borrowed elements from actual train tracks and portrayed them in a simplified form. The ideas included illustrating the empty space in-between the tracks, creating a new form inspired by the zoomed-in view of the tracks consisting of straight lines and squares, and creating a new form inspired by the zoomed-out view of the tracks consisting of simple and curved, overlapping parallel lines.