Speakers
Description
The present article describes a perspective on tactical urban lighting and its power as a source for disruption and innovation in the field of urban lighting. It is the result of an applied research that is currently being carried out by a task group formed by technicians, planners, managers and designers from different private companies and public institutions with responsibility and expertise in public lighting and urban planning. The group objective is to explore innovative methods and state of the art technology implementations as a practical application of the evidence-based knowledge in the field of artificial lighting for the sake of health and well-being. The definition of health is extended, as the concept of well-being includes the urban space as an ecosystem. There is also a fundamental source of awareness that comes from social sciences about how the built environment design promotes well-being, or else constitutes a hazard for health. After a definition phase for the methodologies and the technology that would need to be developed, the task group is focused on developing new products and planning a prototype installation on a real playground. A tactical, lightweight intervention in an urban green area in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona is designed to implement, test, and communicate these innovative methods. Once the experiment is validated, a collaboration with public authorities will allow to introduce innovative perspectives in street lighting. Having received support from local’s regional government innovation programmes, through a competitiveness strengthening initiative, the project is partly funded by the European Commission.
