Designing and experiencing adaptive lighting:case studies with adaptation, interaction and participation

Abstract This thesis explores the design and experience of adaptive lighting. In this research, adaptive lighting is understood as a wide concept referring to lighting which adapts to information about the environment and its users or to other information relevant to intended lighting behaviour. Adaptive lighting is approached as an element of architecture and urban space, which has an influence on the human environmental experience at various levels. The research can be defined as architectural design-based research as well as transdisciplinary research. This research explores design practice by analysing the design processes of three case studies through the research-by-design method. The essential design phases, design tasks and design methods are recognized and presented. In addition, the experiences of adaptive lighting are explored with the help of empirical qualitative research material, which is gained through evaluation of the case studies. The methods used in evaluation include in situ walking interviews and evaluation probes. In the case projects situated in urban environments and in a retail space, different forms of lighting adaptation, interaction and participation were studied. The design process of adaptive lighting can be theorized, based on the three case studies, as a three-phase process consisting of several subtasks. The design process is guided by several design factors. In the design process, cooperation with experts of interaction and system design is beneficial. The users’ experience of adaptive lighting environments is complex and multifaceted. The experiences emerge in each environment as context-related interpretations or manifestations of the general experiential aspects. Finally, adaptive lighting is conceptualized in the thesis as a holistic design task by formulating a framework for pragmatic-experiential and context-oriented design of adaptive lighting. This defines adaptive lighting as a design task from the perspectives of multifaceted users’ experience and pragmatic constraints of design practice. Future design processes should acknowledge the complexity of the design task. Then adaptive lighting can offer, besides energy savings, added value for illuminated environments on many levels of experience. The main significance of this study is to help both designers and clients to understand the diversity of the new design task, and to help to approach it from human-oriented perspective—from the perspective of inhabitants of the environments.Tiivistelmä Tämä väitöskirja tutkii mukautuvan valaistuksen suunnittelua ja kokemusta. Työssä mukautuva valaistus ymmärretään laajana käsitteenä viitaten valaistukseen, joka mukautuu ympäristöstä ja sen käyttäjistä saatavaan tietoon tai johonkin muuhun valaistuksen tavoitellun toiminnan kannalta merkitykselliseen tietoon. Mukautuvaa valaistusta lähestytään arkkitehtuurin ja kaupunkitilan elementtinä, joka vaikuttaa ihmisen kokemukseen ympäristöstään usealla eri tasolla. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan arkkitehtuurin suunnittelulähtöistä tutkimusta ja poikkitieteellistä tutkimusta. Se valottaa suunnittelun praktiikkaa analysoimalla research-by-design-menetelmällä kolmen tapaustutkimuksen suunnitteluprosesseja. Olennaiset suunnitteluvaiheet, -tehtävät ja -menetelmät tunnistetaan ja esitellään. Lisäksi kokemuksia mukautuvasta valaistuksesta tarkastellaan analysoimalla empiiristä, laadullista tutkimusaineistoa, joka on syntynyt tapaustutkimuksia evaluoimalla. Evaluointimenetelminä ovat olleet puolistrukturoitu haastattelu, paikanpäällä tehtävä kävelyhaastattelu ja evaluointiluotain. Tapaustutkimusprojekteissa, jotka sijoittuivat kaupunkiympäristöihin ja liiketiloihin, tutkittiin erilaisia valaistuksen mukautumisen sekä valon kanssa vuorovaikuttamisen ja osallistumisen muotoja. Mukautuvan valaistuksen suunnitteluprosessia voidaan kolmeen tapaustutkimukseen perustuen teoretisoida kolmivaiheisena prosessina, joka sisältää useita alatehtäviä. Suunnitteluprosessia ohjaavat useat suunnittelutekijät. Monialainen yhteistyö suunnitteluprosessin aikana on hyödyllistä. Käyttäjien kokemukset ympäristöistä, jotka on valaistu mukautuvasti, ovat monimutkaisia ja moniulotteisia. Kokemukset muodostuvat kussakin ympäristössä kontekstisidonnaisina tulkintoina ja ilmentyminä yleisistä kokemuksellisista piirteistä. Mukautuvaa valaistusta määritellään ja käsitteellistetään tässä väitöskirjassa holistisena ja kontekstisidonnaisena suunnittelutehtävänä käyttäjän moniulotteisen kokemuksen ja suunnittelupraktiikan käytäntöön liittyvien rajoitusten näkökulmista. Tulevaisuuden suunnitteluprosesseissa tulisi huomioida suunnittelutehtävän moniulotteisuus. Näin mukautuva valaistus voisi tarjota energiansäästöjen ohella valaistuihin ympäristöihin lisäarvoa useilla kokemuksen tasoilla. Tämän työn päämerkityksenä on auttaa sekä suunnittelijoita että suunnittelun tilaajia ymmärtämään uuden suunnittelutehtävän monipuolisuus ja auttaa heitä lähestymään sitä ympäristön käyttäjien näkökulmasta

Drivers’ Experiences and Informed Opinions of Presence Sensitive Lighting Point towards the Feasibility of Introducing Adaptive Lighting in Roadway Contexts

Applications of adaptive and intelligent lighting technologies such as presence sensitive lighting, potentially offer solutions for reducing the energy consumption of road lighting while maintaining user comfort and safety. However, little is known about road users’ experiences of such lighting. To address this gap, we conducted a real-world case study of a presence sensitive roadway lighting on a collector road in a housing area in southern Finland. New, controllable LED lighting with PIR (passive infrared) presence sensors was implemented along the road, and test scenarios were designed, programmed, and tested. The lighting was adapted both to motor vehicles using the road and to the measured traffic density along it. Drivers’ experiences and attitudes toward the lighting were collected in a three-phase evaluation with questionnaires from the community of about 1000 households using the road as part of their daily mobility. The results indicate that as an experience, presence sensitive lighting in a road environment was at least as positive as traditional, uncontrolled lighting. User experiences of presence sensitive lighting did not differ from the experiences of uncontrolled lighting regarding pleasantness, uniformity, glare, and road visibility. Most of the drivers (86%) did not notice any dynamic change in the lighting. When informed about the tested lighting strategies, most of the participants (72%) would prefer either one of the intelligent lighting modes to be the permanent lighting solution. The results of this exploratory, real-world study point towards the potential feasibility of this technology from a user experience perspective, as the experienced stability of the lighting was unaltered in the tested scenarios; importantly, it also highlights the need to study adaptive roadway lighting further, especially through confirmatory studies in controlled settings.</p

Playful and playable lighting in smart cities:towards a holistic framework of design

Abstract In this chapter, we will explore the phenomenon of playful and playable lighting in smart cities. We will describe and discuss participant experiences of playful and playable lighting based on the design and evaluation processes of four case studies. These studies, we argue, provide aspects of participation, communication and self-expression; experiences of the sense of place, meanings and beauty; and activities of play and physical exercise. We will look at these case studies, and the aspects of playfulness and playability, through the lens of both smart city literature and relevant theories, and the practical experiences from the processes, examining also the afterlife of the case studies. We reflect on the presented case studies and their experiential aspects, asking: How can playful and playable lighting be made viable in a city? Finally, we conclude by presenting a design framework which consolidates aspects that, we argue, should be acknowledged, considered and addressed in the design and decision-making processes of smart cities, neighbourhoods and urban places in order to create playful experiences of playable urban lighting in a viable way

Drivers’ experiences and informed opinions of presence sensitive lighting point towards the feasibility of introducing adaptive lighting in roadway contexts

Abstract Applications of adaptive and intelligent lighting technologies such as presence sensitive lighting, potentially offer solutions for reducing the energy consumption of road lighting while maintaining user comfort and safety. However, little is known about road users’ experiences of such lighting. To address this gap, we conducted a real-world case study of a presence sensitive roadway lighting on a collector road in a housing area in southern Finland. New, controllable LED lighting with PIR (passive infrared) presence sensors was implemented along the road, and test scenarios were designed, programmed, and tested. The lighting was adapted both to motor vehicles using the road and to the measured traffic density along it. Drivers’ experiences and attitudes toward the lighting were collected in a three-phase evaluation with questionnaires from the community of about 1000 households using the road as part of their daily mobility. The results indicate that as an experience, presence sensitive lighting in a road environment was at least as positive as traditional, uncontrolled lighting. User experiences of presence sensitive lighting did not differ from the experiences of uncontrolled lighting regarding pleasantness, uniformity, glare, and road visibility. Most of the drivers (86%) did not notice any dynamic change in the lighting. When informed about the tested lighting strategies, most of the participants (72%) would prefer either one of the intelligent lighting modes to be the permanent lighting solution. The results of this exploratory, real-world study point towards the potential feasibility of this technology from a user experience perspective, as the experienced stability of the lighting was unaltered in the tested scenarios; importantly, it also highlights the need to study adaptive roadway lighting further, especially through confirmatory studies in controlled settings

SenCity:evaluating users' experiences of intelligent lightning for well-being in smart cities

Abstract This paper presents the evaluation of users’ experiences in three intelligent lighting pilots in Finland. Two of the case studies are related to the use of intelligent lighting in different kinds of traffic areas, having emphasis on aspects of visibility, traffic and movement safety, and sense of security. The last case study presents a more complex view to the experience of intelligent lighting in smart city contexts. The evaluation methods, tailored to each pilot context, include questionnaires, an urban dashboard, in-situ interviews and observations, evaluation probes, and system data analyses. The applicability of the selected and tested methods is discussed reflecting the process and achieved results