Shining a light on inequality after dark

By Elettra Bordonaro

Elettra Bordonaro is founder and director at Light Follows Behaviour, a lighting design studio which aims to design with people and for people. Elettra is a lighting designer with over 15 years experience in public realm lighting projects focused on community engagement and co-design and a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, member of Configuring Light Research group which aims to use social research to inform lighting design approaches.

The work of the Light Follows Behaviour studio demonstrates that public housing estates are often lit with a view to the security of the landlords rather than the satisfaction of residents.

Our cities and towns all function as complex urban fabrics, where public realm and outdoor spaces have increasingly come under the spotlight as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although at times subtle, social inequality takes on many forms such as wealth, status and knowledge, this is also seemingly linked to the design of the spaces people inhabit and use.

The social inequalities we aim to tackle as designers of urban spaces are related to inequality of resources centred around the human being. Upscale areas seem to have greater access to green open spaces, a greater variety of offered activities, greater priority for pedestrians, and better upkeep and maintenance. Cross an invisible line and suddenly it becomes clear that the funds have not extended to all areas. Planting becomes sparse, upkeep is a lower priority, activities offered are limited, and vehicle access is given priority. While the majority of debates and discussions about public space inequality are focused on the percentage of green, accessible space, pedestrian and gathering space, cycle lanes and pollution, it’s notable that lighting is rarely mentioned as one of the elements that can create inequality. Even though lighting is a critical element in understanding our surroundings after dark, it is repeatedly forgotten or overlooked.

The evolution of LED technology has no doubt revolutionised the lighting design profession, allowing designs which were previously impossible to become a reality. The amount of light a small LED light can provide far exceeds what a traditional light was able to provide only a decade earlier, using less than half of the energy and at a much more competitive price point. Yet these changes have also resulted in a gradual increase in the amount of lighting used to illuminate outdoor spaces. We have now come to associate higher light levels with increased safety and security despite official data showing the opposite. Lighting, as a result, seen outside the context of high-end developments, has taken on a purely utilitarian role ignoring the very context of what is being illuminated.

Crossing many cities after dark, it becomes clear that lighting reveals and even enhances the inequalities that

not have been as apparent during the day. We often see bad lighting creating non-spaces after dark; spaces which by day appear quite normal but at night are transformed into uninviting floodlit spaces, which imply safety and security but encourage passers-by to continue walking and not dwell. This, of course, has a knock-on effect to the surroundings, to the extent that we repeatedly document people altering their routes after dark to avoid these types of spaces.

It is an everyday experience for most to travel through a city after dark. And for many, it is also a common experience to travel from very welcoming zones to more threatening ones, at least in terms of perception. This is due to many factors, but excessive brightness, high contrast, poor light quality, and aesthetic of light fixtures are contributing factors. This is a very typical experience in London and particularly apparent when crossing social housing estates. Having worked within housing estates in London extensively, we repeatedly come across the same issues regardless of their location. When we discuss the estate after dark with residents, we typically hear that the space is too dark or too bright, that some spaces feel unsafe, or that there are concerns about excessive lighting through bedroom windows. While some issues are fundamental problems arising from poor placement of lighting, others are more difficult to resolve as they require a broader understanding of the dynamics of the site.

In many ways, we can largely anticipate what the after-dark conditions will be without even visiting the site. Floodlights illuminating open spaces, and bulkheads used to light outdoor walkways – consequentially also lighting the surrounding spaces to an unnecessary bright level. Curiously, although the estates were built at varying times throughout history and feature vastly broad designs and layouts, it seems a manual of how to light social housing estates was circulated at some point in history, resulting in the monotonous lighting approach we see today.

Lighting is a marker of social inequality. However, it is now often seen as a luxury appropriate for the wealthy in areas where light is not a tool used for control, but simply a way to add value and character to the surroundings. In social housing estates, lighting is simply a functional tool, with no consideration for improving the environment, the wellbeing of residents of the estate or the wider public, but instead focused largely on deterring unwelcome activity. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many of these issues to the forefront by highlighting the lack of good lighting in playgrounds and the lack of welcoming and safe atmospheres, creating spaces which cannot be enjoyed after dark.

Bulkheads along external walkways create over-lit spaces and unnecessary spill light.

© Catarina Heeckt

For this reason, it is critical to approach each project as unique and strive to gain an understanding of each place and the many uses that are essential to achieving a successful design. Aside from the traditional site analysis, to gain a technical and spatial knowledge of the space, it is vital to understand the complex environment often found in social housing estates and community spaces. In our design work, we aim to create a link between the lighting of each space and the needs and concerns of the many stakeholders using the estate or public spaces.

Entrance spaces are lit in the same manner as roads.

© Catarina Heeckt

As we begin to transition to more equal public spaces after dark, it is important to acknowledge that the way forward is to design spaces not with less or more light, but instead by providing better lighting. The topic of ambience is one that we at Light Follows Behaviour studio (LFB) focus on heavily. Ambience refers to creating a desired feeling in a space through lighting as opposed to a product-led approach. In this way we approach each project free of constraints or pre-existing assumptions that another design approach may take. With the needed landscape or architecture in place, it is possible to create a boulevard atmosphere or a playful village atmosphere in a housing estate. Creating atmosphere is not about following a systematic rollout approach to each project with lighting elements, such as tree uplights, path lights, and columns, but instead analysing the wider space to understand where the opportunities and challenges exist and how design, including lighting, can help address these issues and transform the space for the better. While lighting has the ability to reshape how we experience a space, it is also a difficult medium to communicate the intended results. A render or sketch cannot capture the feeling of a space in a way that is easy to understand for the wider public and non-lighting professionals. As a result, we are trialling new methods of engagement and design with residents across a number of London estates this year, and hope to see the use of temporary installations and mockups used more frequently as a means of tackling decades long lighting problems, and to help the public reassess these forgotten spaces through a new lens where atmosphere and ambience take precedence.

Lighting does not enhance architecture or space and obtrusive light through windows does not support wellbeing of residents.

© Catarina Heeckt

At LFB we have focused much of our work in tackling and raising awareness of inequalities linked to lighting in London as well as internationally in Paris, Rhode Island and Sao Paolo, among others. And although we regularly participate in conferences and write for publications, lighting design magazines and events seem to be the primary publications and platforms talking about the design of public spaces after dark, creating an insular environment for discussion and evolution. As an intrinsic design element in the public realm, we hope in future more publications and awards criteria covering public spaces evaluate and document spaces, both by day and night, in order to take the design of the lighting into consideration, as this would represent public spaces as they are truly used by the public.

On-site mockups and lighting trials offer a new way to demonstrate lighting effects.

© LFB

On-site mockups and lighting trials offer a new way to demonstrate lighting effects.

© LFB

Resident involvement and feedback can inform the development of design and encourage participation.

© GWEL

Resident involvement and feedback can inform the development of design and encourage participation.

© GWEL

LFB Case Studies:

Narrow Way, before and after

© Light Follows Behaviour

Narrow Way, before and after

© Light Follows Behaviour

Narrow Way, before and after

© Light Follows Behaviour

The Urban Lounge, Hackney Narrow Way Narrow Way in East London is a prime example of the power lighting can have in transforming a space and enhancing character. The site’s constraints, the needs of the residents living above the shopfronts and the retailers themselves created a unique opportunity to deliver more than another typical street in East London. The aim to create an urban lounge atmosphere resulted in lighting which was primarily focused on creating a welcoming ambience without compromising the needs of the various stakeholders. To complement the transformation into a pedestrianised thoroughfare, the streetlighting was replaced with catenary lampshade lights suspended above the street, creating a busy route which is now also a space which can be enjoyed both by day and night in many ways.

Architectural lighting is not an element that is present in housing estates, but it is prevalent in higher end developments

© Catarina Heeckt

Well placed lighting helps create a calm and welcoming ambience.

© Catarina Heeckt

Lighting enhances the transformed landscape and provides the required light levels in a new way for an estate.

© Catarina Heeckt

The Playful Village, Shadwell Estate Shadwell Estate has undergone a transformation under the Peabody Improve programme, which has seen the largely tarmacked open spaces within the estate transformed with planted mounds and eclectic play equipment in response to the needs of residents and to the playful landscape designed by Turkington Martin. In a drastic shift in approach for lighting of a housing estate, the focus was to move away from the harsh floodlights which were illuminating the estate to lighting which helped create a village atmosphere, in which the open spaces became the focal elements within the unique estate. Architectural lighting frames the estate entrances in a way unheard of in housing estates yet very common in higher end developments and, while simple in application, the various lighting elements come together to completely transform the space, giving the residents of Shadwell Estate, as well as neighbouring estates, a welcoming and well-lit space which is designed with the human experience in mind.

Southside Cultural Centre

© Naho Kubota

Southside Cultural Centre

© Naho Kubota

Southside Cultural Centre

© Naho Kubota

The Contemporary Community Hub, Southside Cultural Center We are no strangers to working on challenging community projects and delivering good quality at many budget levels. Southlight is a project close to our studio, as it is a key example of how good design can have a positive impact within communities. In partnership with the RISD School of Architecture and Ultramoderne architects, what was initially a temporary light installation, aimed at highlighting the opportunities forgotten public spaces have, quickly gained widespread attention from a variety of stakeholders within the city of Providence, resulting in a permanent much-needed event space created for Southside Cultural Center, the local community centre. Despite being located in one of the most deprived and dangerous areas of the city, the lighting brings the event space and landscape to life after dark, enhancing the contemporary design of the event space while subtle lighting to the landscape and surroundings helps create an outdoor auditorium for larger events and social gatherings without the use of high levels of lighting that many would interpret, given the site’s location, as a knee-jerk reaction to preventing crime.