Iain Macrae, Head of Global Lighting Applications Management at Thorn Lighting, a worldwide supplier of outdoor and indoor lighting, spoke to uncube about how lighting is used to control both the flow and attention of people in retail and public spaces.
How is the role of lighting changing in the context of other contemporary urban infrastructure facilities?
Lighting has developed from an expensive luxury to a common physiological expectation: we now expect light at any time and lighting that is good. And we often value light over energy, evidenced in the public realm by the revolt over public lighting switch-offs. Safety, security and comfort still carry more lighting value than energy-saving at a personal level.
What are the future challenges in your view?
Lighting technology is undergoing a revolution. The development of LED offers better light at reduced energy at a time when commercial sensation using lighting carries huge impact on public awareness.
LED lighting should improve the quality of lighting in most spaces but some applications, like high-end sports lighting, may lag behind as the technical challenges are overcome.
Whilst we understand how to create effective and beautiful lighting, we are only just beginning to understand how artificial light affects our mood and well-being.
We know light can affect mood, emotion and sleep, but as yet don’t understand just how much, or how changes in technology will affect this. More research is needed.
The idea of controlling people or crowds has rather sinister overtones but in buildings such as concert venues and sport stadiums this must be a necessity. Are there particular methods involved?
Controlling people with light can be positive, and can be done with four methods. You can use dynamic lighting to match and affect emotion, for example the rhythm of lighting at a concert coupled with the beat of the music can raise heart rate and lift spirits. The second method of control is well-known in retail lighting. You can use the colour and amount of light to draw focus onto products and affect people’s choices.
For instance, if you light raw beef with a light source that has a slightly red tinge, then the beef looks richer, redder and more appetising to most. If you add three to five times the amount of light to a product compared to its surroundings then the effect is quite dramatic and people’s eyes will be drawn to that area of focus.
The third method of control is more subtle. It calls on our inbuilt desire to follow direction and movement. So if you pulse light in one direction, people will prefer subconsciously to travel in that direction. Though not perfect, we found in a retail park in North East England that reversing the direction of light could influence mall shoppers’ direction of travel. You can also use lines of static lighting: horizontal lines of light in the ceiling running across a mall, means people will prefer to divert off to the sides towards the shops. This is not science and is difficult to prove nor heavily used, partly because in retail malls for one thing shops themselves are also attracting attention and hence confuse the research. Having said that, it has been used in airports to try and divert passengers from a quick dash past duty free into the sales areas.
Finally, you clearly use light in crowd control during emergencies. Where power fails to a building you light the exit routes and provide clear exit signs to show the way out. There is no real science here, you provide just the right amount of light to see the way out and reduce panic. When these routes are the only way out then people will follow them.
How does light control function at a practical level in a large building? Can you give an example?
At the Allianz Riviera Stadium in Nice, designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, our lighting performs many more functions than just lighting the building. The exterior lighting advertises the venue, lights the paths and steps, and highlights the entrance. Once inside the lighting is designed to help you navigate the space and find your seat. Along the way concession stands use a warmer colour or a higher level of lighting to focus your attention and hopefully make a sale.
Inside the arena itself there is lighting to the seating, to enable you to find the seat and to see your neighbour.
Behind the scenes it’s this same lighting that lights the crowd itself for crowd control reasons. CCTV cameras can cope with very low levels of illumination, but it’s better for good pictures to provide some light to the face, especially during the match when the pitch may be lit to levels 10 to 14 times higher than the crowd.
The pitch lighting is really there for the TV cameras. The crowd needs much less light on TV. Lighting is designed to light the verticals – the players as they perform – and the horizontal pitch, and it is done in a way that reflects sufficient light to the cameras to create the best pictures. This has to be done with cameras focused tight in on a face from many tens of metres away – hence requiring a lot of light. It also has to be done for the new HD and super slow-motion cameras; these changes in technology are more demanding on the motion-flicker and amount of light we create on the pitch.
Iain Macrae graduated in mechanical engineering and somehow found his way into lighting. Since starting with Thorn 25 years ago he has gained many years manufacturing, application and technical experience in a wide range of projects across most market sectors. Macrae is Immediate Past President of the Society of Light & Lighting and the Head of Global Lighting Applications Management for Thorn Lighting working with an international team directing application design and strategy, co-ordinating work on lighting standards and supporting new product development and marketing. He speaks on a range of lighting subjects both at the Thorn Academy of Light and across the world.
Finally, if the stadium has to be evacuated we provide enough light to get tens of thousands of people out of the stadium without panic. That means providing more light than in any normal building during an emergency, as large crowds panic easily. In most stadia we provide 50 times the lighting level along the escape routes compared to a simple office block.
Can and will light do more in the future – especially in the huge buildings or building conglomerations that are emerging architecturally?
Light is already doing more. The ability for us to control LED lighting, to change its colour dynamically and to do so in complex scenes means many buildings have more than just simple architectural schemes. The future technologies such as OLED may allow us to create lit panels and wall, floors, and so on in different ways. The future of lighting and control of lighting in and on buildings over the next ten years is really exciting. There is a downside of course. Imagine if we add spectacular lighting to every building. The lighting eventually becomes the norm, or we overload the senses, too much of a good thing. There is still a place for subtle yet beautiful lighting; the old designs still work even if the technology to achieve them has changed.
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