PRESERVING THE DARK SKY

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to this live stream event which concentrates on the topic of preserving the dark sky my name is michelle repla and today together with alfred felder we'll be guiding you through this event dear colleagues customers and partners also one welcome from my site to our light forum today for the first time we will show you areas of this exhibition hall that are dedicated to outdoor lighting but let's start by taking a special to the areas of architecture urban life roads and tunnels and sports [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] so so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] when we think about the outdoors and light we think about daytime and nighttime and as a child i was made aware of the milky way as i guess many of you that fascinating collections of countless stars but today for 60 percent of us who live in europe this is no longer visible and in other regions of the world such as in major metropoles for example people have no chance to experience that phenomenon of nature and that alone is a side effect but there are some important facts to tackle today that make it necessary to preserve and recover the dark skies and as a start for this discussion we'll be welcoming our very special guest jetty thorson from snojita today well thank you very much played a major role in the design of our light forum it was snow header and its sumtable group who are partners with many projects for more than 20 years and this light forum was designed by snohetta together with our chief in-house designer herbert resch and we created an inspiring environment where today we are very proud to welcome via skype now scheduled dawson welcome schedule happy to to have you here and talk about the dark style i hope you can hear us we can hear you and i would now hand over the talk to you thank you very very much i think it's such an important issue to invite people from around the world into these conversations on the dark skies you know it's important not only to us as designers architects and producers but to the general public to the environment and how we operate in the future and with the sumtable group we've had years of discussions on philosophical levels on content level regarding light and it culminated to some extent when we were doing the yearly report for zoom total and for 2013 and 14. the yearly report was called living the nordic light and we invited four people at around 100 years old to talk about their perception of life even before electricity and what we did by sort of investigating these elements of things that we were so attached to in the northern region we just emotionally understood that there are certain aspects of light that you of course not cannot control there are certain elements that simply talk to you in the way we experience them while we're sitting in nature while we're sitting around certain situations in our life that make us remember or make us feel better but at the same time there is an interaction of course with human activities however remote however difficult the location might be we are in the perception of wanting to create our own light our own situations as already mentioned quite clearly the milky way is disappearing right in front of our eyes and as we're sitting here talking and discussing around these themes more light is being produced on earth per minute and tonight independent of the weather we will see even less of the gayway than we did last night and as we heard about 60 of the people in the western world and europe cannot see the stars that counts for endless and important elements on the sky like here orion and you will see today most people will perceive oreo the way you see it at the right in the picture and not the way it should be to the left i think to a large extent there is an unjust diversion and unjust distribution of how this is being perceived around the world and people are growing up in different situations around the world perceiving more or less of the natural dark sky kevin gastner he is a professor at the university of exeter and he's kind of been investigating this for the last 10 years there is a dramatic spread of evolutionary unprecedented environmental change happening around the world across huge areas spatial patterns and temporal cycles of light and dark that previously were quite stable and had been the picture that we referred to are disrupted and especially disrupted in very very tightly habited areas now still here i am sitting in paris i'm fascinated by the culture by the light itself by the city of light paris by prolonging of the day experience of historic human development safety and dreams all mixed up in this city so how can we work into the future by keeping the city of light keeping our understanding of what we produce and what we create in our environments whilst saving the night sky from pollution in my mind there are three issues and i think i have many people with me when i say that night glow is one of the major issues because that is what really portrays itself from the sky you have the street lights and of course finally the spectrum of light sky glow can be detected over much wider area than direct artificial lighting itself can it extends tens maybe hundreds of kilometers from the source itself and it can obscure rv of natural starlight and moonlight but also the situation of street lights the most prolific source about the official lighting if you want to call it that is coming from street lighting and there are more than 100 million street lamps around the world today now maybe the number doesn't sound so huge uh thinking about how many we are but at the same time do think that these streetlights at different levels in different countries provide you with on one hand the safety that you're looking for while you're driving or walking along the streets at the same time is preventing you from experiencing something greater and finally of course not only does artificial light and light change the spatial and temporal structure and the intensity of natural light cycles but it also occurs with the spectra visible to the human eye and these spectras produced for the moment are different from those of sunlight moonlight or starlight so when we talk about the perception of where light is coming from we understand that most of the issues that we have from a fairly low hanging sun to the sun in this in it and then back down again behind the horizon most of the time the light is coming from above it is being being brought to us from top down the moon the stars the sun and all aesthetic perception that we have things we create are being based on top down lighting it is essential for us to understand and recognize certain situations within certain environments where you're lost for the way you actually find your way and you orient yourself through the light and the light that describes your surroundings like here with this small cabin up in the norwegian mountains but also the profiles that attach to the shadows that actually generate objects in their natural settings like here at svalbard for the digital archive the thousand-year digital archive you will see that it can only portray itself through the light coming sideways or from the top and we do know of course that a face lit from below shows the parts of the face that were actually created for being in the shadow now this upside down pronunciation of shape and experience is difficult for us to comprehend simply because nature did not want us to perceive it in this particular manner so if you use a torch you test this yourself and see if you recognize your wife unless it is consciously you consciously design elements that are able to take low light from both below and from above for instance like here our art wall the library of alexandria in egypt but at the same time i would like to go in and have a look at the effect of the building itself and its transparent openings in relationship to its surroundings now here the opera house in oslo where you can see that the light is penetrating through the windows and the openings of the building but then again the light is contained within these surfaces it's sort of locked into the surfaces that describe the top of the building and the bottom of the building and by doing that light is indirectly seeping from the inside to the outside and thus indoor lighting becomes outdoor lighting similarly we've been thinking about our las score cave center in france we will see also that this light slot is contained within these two surfaces so the sideways way of lighting up the surroundings give you an understanding of artificial lighting in a horizontal and vertical manner maybe also like here for our museum for the winter olympics art museum in lillahama which at a certain point in time started moving itself forward by just like in old days farm houses gave light to their cold shot through the windows so always be in a position where you capture the light indoor but it always seeps out to the outdoor by doing that maybe you can contain light in architecture that gives you the possibility of understanding where you are maintaining the light source as as a way of looking for what you're searching but at the same time preserving the night skies so these sideways lighting is an old way of looking at how exterior and interior blend it is a way of looking at the warmth of the interiors like here with the open air hospital space a hospital room which we've created in oslo here a small cabin outside of oslo or the rc offices in but sometimes we can also shift the transparency and where the light is coming out by vertical and more horizontal issues like here the cantilever of a small museum in the very northern parts of norway where you will see that the window is oriented towards the ground and by that also becoming a skylight artificial skylight for the outdoors so the cantilever of this building over the outdoors is at the same time an outdoor lamp like it would be for the isabelle center of the arts where the window with the piano player is a perception of how you would like or understand the inversion of the building from one side to the other which could count for whatever you do in urban situations or in landscape situations where all of a sudden then part of the light design is how the windows are sitting because in the perception of the shape of the windows and what they actually do all of a sudden you are descriptive in your way of using light that penetrates from the inside to the outside like here the house for an artist called bernomerigo outside of oslo or the art academy in bergen which is doing exactly the same and you will see that the careful location of the windows is increasing the light towards the ground and decreasing the light towards the top of the building which is the same we were trying to do for the library in alexandria with the contained interior light still seeping out or even with the memorial pavilion in new york where the transition of the window openings towards the sky put a lid on the light that we're containing and that is actually penetrating to the outside but sometimes we even direct the light towards the inner space which is also an outdoor and by that indirectly looking at light and light sources as a way of containing themselves or containing it themselves within the certain shape of the architecture so architectural space becomes an active tool in your design strategy for light there is no such thing as independent designs and then adding the light they have to be included they have to be part of from the very beginning when you start thinking about light and especially when it comes to night sky pollution again like here for the library in alexandria where the hovering part of the library is lit up from below then all of a sudden reflected back to the ground through the ceiling of this hovering part of the building and at the same time being very careful with what the material is that actually reflects it back into the space so the level of reflectivity is reduced for the amount of light that should penetrate towards the sky also is reduced but it could also be like here our new metro station cover for the metro station in riyadh and saudi arabia which is all about introverting the experience of what piece of architecture can be you can see this way of catching the surrounding lights and bringing it back in to the subway station which is far deeper below but at the same time generating a picture which is the upside down picture of what is happening in the interior so it's not really a light source but it's capturing light and it's bringing and reversing the use of light from inside to outside and from outside to inside so talking about buildings this is of course essential because everything we do is about shape and form and it's about environment as a result of that we can no longer just light up everything and don't care why and how we've used the light sources that we're using we need to be more specific and that in itself counts just as much for lighting up buildings or using the light of buildings as it does for instance for street lighting and i think one of the most important parts for outdoor lighting is to block the light from penetrating into the night sky we have to put again like we did with the buildings a lid on the light that penetrates and make sure that it only hits the areas which they are needed for of course there are exceptions to some of these things as it goes and especially in the arts you have the possibility of capturing light in a very different way also from technology point of view and this is an installation for the light festival in in singapore at the marina bay where we designed what we called the lamp shade now what this lampshade does is that during the day it shades an interior space through the lamps but at the same time lamps are collecting the sunlight in batteries and transforming that into the light of the sun itself during night of course we can adjust the kind of spectra of of color in this but at the same time it is amazing to see that within the arts themselves we have a tool where we can benchmark certain elements and try to develop them further into what we haven't seen so far and that also was quite much the same that we were trying to do with olaf our liaison on the serpentine pavilion which we worked together on and i think you will see easily that experimentation with light and how it reacts in relationship to its surroundings is important as we know wildlife as we know the biodynamics of an area is so much depending on that for future life on earth and not the least on the amount of co2 equivalents that are being produced in order for us to keep using electricity but it can also be an attachment to how the color of a certain situation is being perceived now of course the spectra of things and the spectra of light is important in the way we think we understand it it is an important element of life and we have to move towards certain situations now where we become more understanding of the psyche that is related to color and the color of light it is not about lighting things up it is about making sure that what you light up has the content of the things you want to show and as such we can use limited light even on stage like here we designed the stage for the pagan festival in the middle of norway extending a lake with a water stage and the actors would be playing in water and by that the reflection from the sky would already light up the the actors on this stage and we would need limited amount of light for them to actually be able to perform and the actors would themselves be in a situation where they could take the light hold it and let the whole stage game become part of it now talking about the spectre is quite obvious that we are surrounded by too much blue light patients who have been hospitalized because of manic conditions or depressive conditions have shown that if you reduce the amount of blue light coming say out of the computer out of your mobile out of your television screen but also in relationship to some of the lighting which you spend your day in you become calmer if you reduce the amount of blue which by the way was something we found out about the elderly people in the northern parts of norway which we interviewed for living nordic light was that their perception of blue wood was much wider than the blue we perceive being having been born south of the publisher which means that they are already adjusting their blue perception slightly differently from us born south of the circle so we need the yellow and the orange whereas they can easily survive by subdividing the different blues into different categories between henriksen she has been researching this for quite some time and it's interesting to see how sleeplessness can actually be helped by just introducing more orange reddish light an hour say before you go to sleep so maybe maybe sometime in the future we will all be wearing these type of glasses just from our day to make sure with the zomtroller group and tom will get to a point where this is not necessary and will save the world before we all have to start wearing orange glasses but i think as such these blue tones that we have as beautiful as they might be and as polluted the sky might seem the way we have to react is responsibly and in my mind still the very best thing to do is to turn off the light when you're not there so thank you very much for your opportunity thank you very much for your very inspiring presentation in connection to see how darkness of the skies is important and how to preserve them and obviously thank you very much for giving you giving us a couple of instructions how to avoid it just taking the last one on the blue and filtering out the blue for the healthiness but also to avoid light pollution once again schedule really appreciate your time today for us for the audience and maybe as a next step now we can share a little bit what we do to preserve the dark sky and what we do in thorn very well-being to you back to paris enjoy your evening and thank you again for joining thank you so much thank you and now let's please join our colleagues on the other side of the light forum in which we are going to discuss a little bit about some products and technologies that can help you to achieve best solutions in practice for that let me welcome our key account manager keith lobo is over to you now keith directly from our architectural lighting space many thanks michelle and welcome to the light forum in the section where we showcase our solutions for outdoor lighting let's now take a look at some products and concepts which can really help us to achieve best-in-class solutions in practice joining me today from the uk i would like to welcome peter thorns who is head of strategic lighting applications hello peter hi good to see you thanks for being along today uh peter architecture makes our cities what they are and its impact doesn't have to be lost at night but how do we light important buildings facades bridges or monuments and at the same time guarantee that the light is not overused and that it only goes where it needs to so a major problem with lighting buildings and structures is that frequently the places to mount lightings are is it's limited by the restrictions you've got the heritage of the building you've got the building design you've got the surroundings of the building or even you've got the need to access the lighting for maintenance and this means that the position of the light fittings can be compromised so wherever the lighting is positioned it's important to consider the viewpoint if he was going to actually watch the structure of the building whatever it is if you put the lighting at the same place for the person who's going to watch it the building will look all washed out there'll be no shadows or soft shadows it won't be very interesting but you need to minimize as far as possible how many places that you're lighting for the fewer positions of observation you have the less light you need the less chance you have of spill light and it's critical that the light only illuminates the building and spill light is minimal so this generally requires the installation to be fine-tuned after installation so you can adjust the light and concepts such as the one technology that we use with the 5d lens allows you to tune the lighting and make sure the lighting is optimized for the building or the structure that you're lighting and you always have to remember the building of the structure is actually part of the control of the lighting installation if you're putting the light on the building it's not getting spilled you're controlling it properly and therefore you're using the light to the best effect okay thanks a lot peter and let's move on into our urban section here in the urban section let's talk about the issue that while we humans tend to be active during the day there are of course many creatures which are nocturnal and depend on having a dark environment peter how can we light part of the outdoors for us while still respecting nature an important thing to consider is that lighting is for people buildings don't get frightened in the dark and nocturnal animals have much better night vision than humans do so if there's enough people in this space light isn't needed however if you do need light it should be to the minimum level that you need and you should consider that as you move through the night and early evening into the night time your color temperature should change it should get warmer because that has less ecological impact on animals and plants so the lighting requirements change through the night and we can't just keep constant light all the time now as the needs change the lighting should change with it an example of this is our night tune technology that starts off with an intermediate light and intermediate color temperature and as you head in towards the night the color temperature gets warmer and the light dims down so it's reacting to the fact that there will be less people in the middle of the night so we're trying to respect the plants and the animals so you have to balance the needs you have the ecological needs but you also have requirements for people people want safe spaces so we have to make sure we don't create a sort of demographic curfew where certain parts of the population are scared to go out at night because they have a fear of crime or a fear of falling or whatever it is we have to make sure that in the night places are inclusive and we should always ask the question why we do the lighting are we doing the lighting because it's what we've always done so it's expected it's a social habit or are we actually doing the lighting because it's really needed very interesting thanks peter let's move on to the next section which is street lighting when we talk about lighting our roads and pathways peter are we able to find a compromise between enough light to see and be seen when needed without providing too much light or for too long yes at some point we'll have to change the way we do lighting and we'll have to stop considering what spaces are and start thinking about how spaces are used through time so lighting roads and pathways in a commercial area that's used during working hours but fairly empty at night and in the early morning should not mean having light from dusk to dawn if an area is essentially deserted for a significant period of time we should be able to dim the lighting or even turn it off and then we can use sensors to activate the lighting when it's required and the same goes for many of the roads and paths within our urban environment city centres that are quiet after midnight don't need the same quantity and quality of light they had earlier on in the evening pathways that are used to move between different areas might be essentially unused for lots of hours of darkness and not need lighting at that point so we need to use smarter lighting but we need to use it in a smart way and we have to start to understand how our urban spaces and streets work how they wake up how they're used and then how and when they go to sleep and when we understand that we can light them accordingly that's a nice comparison about the streets going to sleep but we're not going to sleep just yet we're going to liven things up a little bit and head off into our sports section especially those of us who live in towns and cities are aware of the effect which sports lighting has not just in the arena but in spaces all around whether we're talking about a premier league stadium or a local tennis club how can we provide sufficient light for the activity without going over the top it's not unusual to see a light bubble over our sports areas and we have to accept that some of that can't be avoided even if we correctly like the space with no spill light some light will be reflected up from the surface of the pitch on the spot surface so until we get better surfaces there's always going to be some light that goes into the sky but as lighting professionals it's our duty to ensure we control the light so it only goes where it's intended light that goes directly upwards is just not acceptable and mounting fittings flat so that is with no tilt helps to prevent this fittings such as altis or champion that have an asymmetric distribution and push right forward let you mount the light fitting flat so that there's no light going directly up into the sky and they have a number of distributions because using the correct distribution for the task is essential and we have to start using the lighting controls sensibly and consistently we understand that we always over light spaces because we have to plan for the end of life case where the lighting is you're getting less light output the fittings got older and what that means is we really only have the correct lighting level at end of life all the rest of the time the space is overlit so we should use lighting controls and dim the lighting down so that we always have the correct lighting no matter what point through the lifetime of the installation and we also have to acknowledge who or what actually drives lighting requirements so if you look at professional sports failure they're generally driven by the television companies the amount of light that is needed by the companies to record and show the sports event but actually this lighting level is only required when the cameras are in operation so you should have lots of different lighting levels so that you can actually put the lighting on correct for what's happening if it's a training session you don't need that high level of lighting so as always it comes back to controlling the light to make sure you have the correct amount of light at the correct time and modern lighting using the solid state technology such as led allows this place precise control of the lighting so we have to use this so we can enjoy sport whilst also minimizing environmental impacts thank you peter thank you i think that's good news for the players but also for the neighbours so that concludes our little journey through these four applications here in the light forum and without any further ado back to you michelle thank you keith and peter for this very useful insights as i don't need the ball here i'm gonna give it back to you keith so it would seem that by using a thoughtful planning the right design with the right optics a thought for installation and the instant experienced lighting controls we can make a significant change in preserving or recovering the dark skies and thank you for joining this event on a very specific topic i hope you found it both useful and interesting stay tuned for more from torn yeah in regards to the night skies and the outdoor environments on the 8th of april we are going to have a 20 minutes dialogue about how to light the dark and how to avoid light pollution and why do we need the dark and the light and if you want to register you can go in our website to do so or to this and to other events as well let's work together to ensure that the future we can see more stars again on clear nights and we enjoy the beauty of a dark night sky so thank you very much for your participation stay healthy and hope to see you soon again [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Lets Talk Light - Thorn Lighting

Views: 22,419

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Id: FIrOLrONb5Y

Length: 41min 42sec (2502 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021