Designing with Light in Libraries
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Architecture
Abstract
Research Context:
Design involves making choices and identifying opportunities. The best buildings are arguably ones in which the functional, social, environmental and aesthetic roles of architecture are positively integrated and mutually inclusive. Yet current lighting design guidance, with its emphasis on quantitative criteria, generally fails to take this into account. This study, which aims to carry out a detailed appraisal of the qualitative aspects of lighting in one particular building type, looks to redress this inbalance.
A number of recent publications have discussed daylighting design and performance but few have provided in-depth analysis of how considerations to do with lighting directly inform or shape broader design intentions. They indicate nevertheless that a study of library buildings, which brings together research on how users actually experience the visual environment with an assessment of how client and design teams synthesize thinking about light and space, would be very valuable.
Current debates surrounding both design quality and the nature of libraries also underline the timeliness of this study.
The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) is a concept for evaluating the quality of buildings as they are being designed, built and first occupied. It aims to address both quantitative and qualitative characteristics, and divergent sets of values of developers and builders on the one side and designers on the other, in order to win the acceptance of both cultures. This project draws on the DQI experience and aims to contribute to the debate by focussing specifically on light and its spatial implications, and to assess the product (libraries) in relation to the process of design.
Recent discussions regarding the role and nature of libraries have either taken a historical perspective or looked at future design issues. Here the central importance of creativity in design has been emphasised and the idea that imaginatively designed libraries play a pivotal role in social cohesion, civic pride and local identity. Although a number of 'design elements' are discussed in these studies, surprisingly - for a building type where light is an essential ingredient to functional and aesthetic success - the creative potential of light has to date been ignored.
Aims and objectives:
This project aims to reveal the creative potential of the use of light in the design of contemporary libraries. It will achieve this through the recording and analysis of lighting conditions in eight case-study buildings and one 'benchmark building', and compare these to the intentions of the clients and design team, as well as to the technical criteria for reading, ICT use and storage. Through case-based comparisons, questionnaires and interviews the purpose is to supplement the existing largely technical design criteria with qualitative guidance that responds to user experiences of library spaces and reveals creative opportunities to clients, architects and engineers.
Potential applications and benefits:
Architecture is a significant creative industry in the UK with an international reputation for design excellence. This project aims to contribute to extending this reputation by exploring how lighting design guidance can be reframed to act as a catalyst for higher quality design. By analysing a number of prize-winning library buildings the study is looking to supplement technical design guidelines with descriptions of the qualitative opportunities and dilemmas highlighted by these projects, in order that this knowledge can be brought to bear on the briefing and design process for future projects. The aim is not to overturn current thinking and design criteria. Rather the study will attempt to review some of the problematic ambiguities and unintended consequences of current guidance, in order to indicate how design issues can usefully be reframed, and to prompt new ways of exploring and refining intelligent design strategies.
Design involves making choices and identifying opportunities. The best buildings are arguably ones in which the functional, social, environmental and aesthetic roles of architecture are positively integrated and mutually inclusive. Yet current lighting design guidance, with its emphasis on quantitative criteria, generally fails to take this into account. This study, which aims to carry out a detailed appraisal of the qualitative aspects of lighting in one particular building type, looks to redress this inbalance.
A number of recent publications have discussed daylighting design and performance but few have provided in-depth analysis of how considerations to do with lighting directly inform or shape broader design intentions. They indicate nevertheless that a study of library buildings, which brings together research on how users actually experience the visual environment with an assessment of how client and design teams synthesize thinking about light and space, would be very valuable.
Current debates surrounding both design quality and the nature of libraries also underline the timeliness of this study.
The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) is a concept for evaluating the quality of buildings as they are being designed, built and first occupied. It aims to address both quantitative and qualitative characteristics, and divergent sets of values of developers and builders on the one side and designers on the other, in order to win the acceptance of both cultures. This project draws on the DQI experience and aims to contribute to the debate by focussing specifically on light and its spatial implications, and to assess the product (libraries) in relation to the process of design.
Recent discussions regarding the role and nature of libraries have either taken a historical perspective or looked at future design issues. Here the central importance of creativity in design has been emphasised and the idea that imaginatively designed libraries play a pivotal role in social cohesion, civic pride and local identity. Although a number of 'design elements' are discussed in these studies, surprisingly - for a building type where light is an essential ingredient to functional and aesthetic success - the creative potential of light has to date been ignored.
Aims and objectives:
This project aims to reveal the creative potential of the use of light in the design of contemporary libraries. It will achieve this through the recording and analysis of lighting conditions in eight case-study buildings and one 'benchmark building', and compare these to the intentions of the clients and design team, as well as to the technical criteria for reading, ICT use and storage. Through case-based comparisons, questionnaires and interviews the purpose is to supplement the existing largely technical design criteria with qualitative guidance that responds to user experiences of library spaces and reveals creative opportunities to clients, architects and engineers.
Potential applications and benefits:
Architecture is a significant creative industry in the UK with an international reputation for design excellence. This project aims to contribute to extending this reputation by exploring how lighting design guidance can be reframed to act as a catalyst for higher quality design. By analysing a number of prize-winning library buildings the study is looking to supplement technical design guidelines with descriptions of the qualitative opportunities and dilemmas highlighted by these projects, in order that this knowledge can be brought to bear on the briefing and design process for future projects. The aim is not to overturn current thinking and design criteria. Rather the study will attempt to review some of the problematic ambiguities and unintended consequences of current guidance, in order to indicate how design issues can usefully be reframed, and to prompt new ways of exploring and refining intelligent design strategies.
Organisations
Publications
Campbell J W P
(2013)
The Library: A World History
Dou P
(2007)
User preferences for routing and seating in response to daylighting design
in The Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, PLEA 2007
Lo W L
(2012)
Application of the state of the art HDR imaging analysis in lighting research
in Proceedings of Experiencing Light 2012: International Conference on the Effects of Light on Wellbeing
Lo W L
(2009)
The art of brightness and darkness: A critical investigation on daylighting quality
in Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture
Lo W L
A new subjective-objective approach to evaluating lighting quality
in Proc. of PLEA 2014
Lo W L
Perceived and Measurable
in Proc. of Experiencing Light 2014: International Conference on the Effects of Light on Wellbeing
Oliviera F
(2007)
Daylighting: a survey on the behaviour and satisfaction of visitors
in Proc of 25th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture
| Description | The project has achieved the original aims and objectives 'to explore the way in which lighting design guidance for libraries should be supplemented or qualified to underline the creative potential of designing with light beyond the technical criteria'. It has achieved this through the recording and analysis of lighting conditions in eight case-study buildings and one 'benchmark' building, and compares these to the intentions of the clients and design team, as well as to the technical criteria for reading, ICT use and storage. Through case-based comparisons, questionnaires and interviews we have met the purpose 'to supplement the existing largely technical design criteria' with qualitative insights (as well as new quantitative assessment) that responds to user experiences of library spaces and reveals creative opportunities to clients, architects and engineers. The books and papers that emerge from the project reveal how the perception of library users can and should impact on library design and thus how the framing of lighting design issues for libraries should be reconsidered and enhanced. The ultimate aim of the book is to stimulate a more creative conversation between clients and the design team. It achieves this by taking closer account of users and revealing users' needs with respect to lighting design. Through the detailed study of the case study buildings the project offers an evaluation of the approaches, opportunities, challenges, sequences and relationships in light which need attention in library design. The original 'measurable objectives' were: - 'To investigate and analyse the visual environment or 'lightscape' provided by each of the selected library buildings in order to demonstrate the relationship / or lack thereof / between functional lighting criteria and lighting quality'. This has been achieved through very detailed light monitoring of the case studies and this has been written-up both individually and in terms of comparative insights for the book by Steane and several of the academic papers. - 'To identify and develop a way of framing qualitative design guidance that reflects how lighting objectives can shape design development and to highlight the relative significance of integrating environmental ambitions with wider design criteria or 'vision''. This has been achieved through analysis and presentation of analysis related to design team interviews, user feedback and the luminous environment. - 'To disseminate the new knowledge and understanding in ways which are intelligible and engaging for clients, librarians, architects, environmental engineers and researchers by exploiting media and formats that are familiar and appropriate to this audience'. Numerous books and papers have been produced that address academic and professional audiences - these are listed via the ResearchFish website. - By focusing on one building type (i.e. libraries) it has been possible to address the concerns of both designers and users, and to advance knowledge on how light in architecture is perceived and can be analysed. New monitoring and survey methods have been developed, demonstrated and published, and detailed information from a range of contemporary case studies has been produced. This has enabled us to develop a nuanced understanding of the relationships between quantitative and qualitative characteristics of light in real buildings and their implications for users and designers. We are confident that this advances the creative potential of lighting design beyond current, largely metric, criteria, and increases knowledge and understanding of designing with light in libraries. |
| Exploitation Route | The underlying research has stimulated research related to designing with light by Masters and PhD students, many of whom have gone on to work in practice and consultancy. |
| Sectors | Construction,Education,Energy,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | Whether libraries have a future has been a subject for dispute in recent years, stirring up debate about the need to reconsider what kind of places they should be, what kind of environments they should be looking to provide. A research project seeking to examine the way in which a series of contemporary prize-winning library buildings have exploited daylight seemed to offer an opportunity to reflect on how daylighting strategies have evolved a century or so after the invention of electric light - and the particular dilemmas or unforeseen opportunities that the lighting strategies of specific projects can illustrate. Eight recently completed libraries were visited, seven in the UK and one in Ireland, as was one older 'benchmark' library building in Finland from the 1960s, whose designer was a celebrated master of daylighting, Alvar Aalto. User questionnaires were completed at seven of these buildings and, wherever possible, current librarians were probed on operational issues, and the original designers on their ambitions for daylight. In summarising how daylighting is being successfully integrated or not with other design ambitions, we envisage that the primary readership for a study of this kind are librarians and other design team members involved in the commissioning, updating, designing and operating of library buildings. What is good reading light, and what lighting issues the situation of private reading in a public space raises, is not an issue dealt with particularly well by current lighting guidelines. Now that access to enough light is never in doubt, such guidance implies that how contemporary buildings can create suitable library light is an open question. Yet quite how complex a question it is, and the extent to which it involves a broad appreciation of people's response to and interaction with buildings is perhaps not immediately obvious. The phrase 'good reading light' conjures images of a reader near a window, book to hand, with the page in question turned to the light. What the image suggests is that what is critical to reading is enough light from the right direction so the fine detail of a text is intelligible and the page sufficiently bright to be the natural focus for the reader. It implies that the relationship of the reader to the light, the book and the room is important, i.e. that good conditions for reading are a matter of spatial geometry as well as sufficient illumination. As the historical study we undertook confirmed, in older library buildings, where daylight is the principal source of task light, the overall arrangement is typically informed by such considerations, The distribution of light shapes both the section and the plan in order to ensure that readers are located and oriented to make the most of the natural light. Since artificial light has become readily available however, it has become possible to design larger library buildings which can open for longer, but the downside this has had for intelligent daylighting has frequently been ignored. On the one hand, now that turning on a light is so easy and so relatively cheap in economic terms, the very availability of artificial light seems to be prompting its conspicuous consumption. What the study has underlined is that having all the lights on in a public building like a library has now come to signal 'openness' to such a degree that even buildings designed to be predominantly daylit are being artificially lit throughout the day. It is also prompting designs that do not make sense in daylighting terms . A further related lesson is that the way in which artificial lighting systems are designed to work in buildings that have the potential to be predominantly daylit deserves considerably more attention. This is both to ensure that light fittings are not obtrusive and can be easily changed, but also to lower energy consumption while maintaining adequate - and stimulating - lighting conditions, as day turns to night. The project began with the premise that it was also worth asking users to assess and comment on the field of light a library provides, and to see if any conclusions could be drawn about the lighting parameters the design team should concentrate on. Parallel monitoring studies of the daylight and photographic studies of the interior spaces reinforced our understanding of the design principles in play and allowed us to interpret the questionnaire responses. Perhaps the most striking finding here was that users now expect to have good access to view from a library. They may not necessarily be clear about whether the light they enjoy is daylight or artificial light, but they seem to appreciate the additional visual interest and feeling of spaciousness that views can induce, and where libraries did not meet this desideratum they were considerably less positive, even if an interior was potentially well day-lit via narrow side windows, or via larger high-level windows or roof-lights. It would seem that the visual release from focused studying that low-level windows of any orientation allow mean that, whether public or institutional, a library is now ideally a room - or perhaps several rooms - with a view. It was possibly on this account that our Finnish benchmark library turned out to be less well liked by its users than the more recent buildings which have succeeded it. However another explanation for this lack of enthusiasm illustrates an important dilemma for any library designer aiming to make the most of daylight. The collection of this library has clearly outgrown the space for which it was originally designed, and what was once a generous if highly introverted space is now both gloomier and more constricted as far as room and light to browse in is concerned. In seeking longevity should designers always give the potential flexibility of library spaces a high priority? The extent to which a future change of use - or change of layout - should determine lighting strategy in library buildings is open to debate. This is why assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of flexible spatial arrangements - and potential strategies for expansion - deserve close consideration early in the design process. Windows are fixed, but daylight is stimulating, desirable and free. Agreeing on the degree to which change will be possible is of paramount importance, and integrated design teams, engaging in integrated thinking about lighting provision, should be looking to frame how a design is confronting this question. As they do so they should bear in mind that daylight and place are inextricably linked, that daylight gives location in time and space. As several of these libraries illustrate very beautifully, to take a book to the light in a well-daylit building can also be to find one's place in the world. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
| Sector | Construction,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | See engagment activities for influence on profession/practice |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Impact on design of daylight to improve environmental sustainability of the built environment. For example, at the Daylight Conference referred to previously the parallel presentation made by Danish architects cited the daylighting research as influential in their design projects. |
| Title | Photogrpahy as a tool for lighting assessment |
| Description | The advanced use of photography and HDR images in the analysis of lighting conditions and characteristics is described in detail in the PhD by Santa Clara and in a published paper. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2009 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The technique was presented at the PLEA conference and discussed at that international forum. It is not possible to record the specific impact because the research provided important incremental advances. |
| Description | Consultancy and expert contributions to conferences |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Consultancy and presentations regarding daylighting led to numerous research, design projects and buildings incorporating expertise related to the knowledge gained on the AHRC project. The most recent example is an invited keynote speech at an International Daylighting Conference in Copenhagen in 2013, which has resulted in the commissioning of a book on light in architecture and its implications for health and well-being due to be published in 2015. See above and see video clips via URL below. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010,2011,2012,2013,2014 |
| URL | http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/people/kas11@cam.ac.uk |