Opinion: Lighting the way for better placemaking

From encouraging a sense of community to promoting safety, lighting has the power to completely transform a space, yet its potential is often not fully embraced in designs. Kimberly Bartlett, head of lighting at Introba UK, explains the importance of recognising the value of good lighting and placing it at the heart of residential masterplanning to support placemaking.
Lighting can often be treated as an afterthought in residential masterplanning – an essential service but one that is seen as a plug-in at the end (no pun intended). The emphasis is typically on just two things: cost and energy. But lighting is no longer simply a numbers game, and I would like to introduce a new player to the conversation: place.
Thinking bigger picture
We only have to look at the rollout of LED lights to see how a race to the bottom on energy consumption isn’t what’s best for people, or even the planet, in some cases. Although cool blue-white street lighting might save one or two watts, this comes at the expense of quality of space, making areas far less inviting for both people and wildlife. Of course, sustainability is hugely important and we need to ensure that our estates are delivering on net zero targets, but it’s crucial to strike a balance and we have to recognise that lighting can have a surprisingly far-reaching impact on the way tenants and homeowners use and feel about where they work and live.
Designing places for people
If designed well, lighting can be a real tool to help us transform functional, dull spaces into ones that inspire a sense of place and encourage community, well-being and inclusivity. But we have to think holistically and pay attention to the triple bottom line to unlock that potential.
The link between light and the feeling of safety is intrinsic, rooted in our primal instincts. So when we’re creating places for people, we’ve got to consider that, for many, darkness makes spaces completely inaccessible. This leaves communal areas, facilities and transport links – all expensive additions to a development – underutilised in the winter months when daylight hours barely extend past the nine ‘til five working day. The knock-on effect of this can be a significant increase in single-person car use, effectively denting the congestion-free, low-pollution intentions of developers and councils. Similarly, we need to consider the breadth of people likely to be living in a development, designing masterplans to cater for the varying accessibility and mobility requirements they may have. For visually impaired residents, for example, adequate lighting can be the difference between making it home safely and suffering a fall that leaves them in hospital.
Lighting features that ensure well-lit pathways, outdoor areas and entryways not only make places safer for everyone by boosting natural surveillance, but they also encourage people to gather and make use of features and connection links both early in the morning and late at night, saving emissions that could otherwise be created by cars. These design decisions help to create a much greater sense of community and shared experience, combatting loneliness and promoting well-being.
Looking to the future
To create the most impact and avoid clutter in cities where land is increasingly at a premium, lighting must be built into the fabric of a place. But with this comes challenges. When features are installed in walls, floors and existing structures, regular updates and maintenance can be difficult to carry out. By bringing in the expertise of lighting design engineers as early as possible in the design phase, better decisions can be made to work around these challenges and ensure that features are not only the most effective but also future-proofed to give the greatest return on investment.
In giving lighting a greater focus in conversations around residential design and factoring in the impact it can have on residents, we will enable housebuilders to become true placemakers and deliver spaces that set new standards for well-being, safety and community. In a world where we’re all rightly shifting our focus to the planet and how we can reduce our impact on it, let’s try not to forget the things that make a house a home.
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