Smart Light for Placemaking

2020 | Slim Licht Maakt Plaats

Smart lighting is entering public space. In this development, there seems to be a blind spot for design of light itself. The light of ‘Smart’ streetlights is very similar to that of ‘traditional’ LED streetlights, despite the fact that there are many new possibilities to give shape to light in terms of distribution, colour and dynamics. This project develops an alternative design approach to smart lighting. It aims to contribute to Placemaking: Making public space more meaningful for its users, with their input, in our case using light. To achieve this, we conduct design-research at three specific locations in the city of Eindhoven, for which we develop smart light scenarios together with residents through actual use of light. This is crucial: Talking about light will not do. Light needs to be experienced. For that end, developed ‘Light sketching’ streetlights that enable people to create their own light distributions, colours and dynamics, as easy as finger-painting. Through live light sketching sessions with residents in their own streets, we learned about the value of smart lighting approached from a design perspective, about the developed tools and about this specific process to create smart lighting for Placemaking. The Slim Licht Maakt Plaats project runs from January 2020 until March 2021.

This project is an initiative of Studio Philip Ross, in collaboration with Indre Kalinauskaite (TU/e ID), TU/e Intelligent Lighting Institute and GlowLabs, supported by gemeente Eindhoven. The project is funded by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

Pictures by Bart van Overbeeke