Guiding issues of artificial light use in urban landscape architecture

Abstract

The principles of human expectation, safety and security, legibility, and physiological characteristics of the human eye and brain all contribute to the perception of urban outdoor space at night. Illuminating engineering, lighting design, and environmental psychology have contributed to a greater understanding of these principles and their impact in terms of artificial light use in urban landscape architecture. The information gathered on artificial light use was achieved through an extensive literature review on illuminating engineering, lighting design and environmental psychology. The contributions of each are summarized in Chapter One. Chapters Two and Three focus on human perception and the physiology of vision, and lighting technology respectively. Emphasis has been placed on their implications in terms of implementation, safety and security, legibility, aesthetics, and the design process. Chapter Four synthesizes this information and generates lighting principles for landscape architects. These results are applied to a proposed urban park design located within the downtown area of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Special attention was given to the implementation of these principles into a cohesive lighting scheme.