The Urban Lightscapes/Social Nightscapes exhibition: social research illuminating social spaces

How can lighting designers better understand the social spaces and communities they design for? The Urban Lightscapes/Social Nightscapes exhibition hosted in the framework of LIGHT EDU Symposium 2016 will document an innovative week-long workshop which brought international lighting designers, architects, planners and social scientists to a housing estate in London to explore the role social research can play in the design process.

Researchers from the Configuring Light/Staging the Social programme, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, collaborated with the Social Light Movement to show the participants how to undertake social research which would help them better understand the estate and its community. Throughout the workshop participants, working as design teams, talked to the estate’s community to understand life on the estate, their lighting needs and try out different lighting fixtures.

Each group produced a lighting design in response to their research findings and presented it to a symposium of Peabody staff, residents, other designers and academics. This highly innovative use of academic research within design practice has engaged with, and delivered benefits for, the lighting design and planning profession, the 1200 residents of the Whitecross Estate and for Peabody. The exhibition will open on the 3rd October at TRIADE Interart Foundation Gallery, Timisoara. The project was funded by Londol School of Economics HEIF5 – a fund which supports knowledge exchange between universities and colleges and the wider world – and by iGuzzini lighting manufacturer.