Illuminating the City:
Leni Schwendinger’s Vision for Urban Nightscapes By RANDY REID
A “heat map” of downtown Myrtle Beach illustrating community feedback on nighttime locales. Photo credit: Emily Dufner
Leni Schwendinger has dedicated more than two decades to reshaping the way cities look and feel after dark. A published, award-winning authority on urban lighting, she has built an international reputation for her innovative practice of nighttime design urbanism—a discipline that brings together infrastructure, art, safety, and community engagement. Through projects around the world, she has demonstrated how light can transform not just the appearance of a city but the way people use and experience it. At the core of Leni’s work is her NightSeeing™, Navigate Your Luminous City program. Trademarked more than 20 years ago, NightSeeing™ is a rigorously planned nighttime walk where participants explore the city at civil twilight—when
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daylight fades and the character of artificial light takes over. These walks, which take an hour to cover what would normally be a 10-minute route, are designed to make participants acutely aware of lighting conditions, safety, and ambience. “Walking and talking is so productive,” she explained. “I point out every phenomenon, and I elicit feedback and questions from people on the walk to get them involved.” This participatory method was central to the Myrtle Beach NightSeeing™ and Night Lighting Masterplan. The project was coordinated by the Business Improvement District of the Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance, which sought to integrate lighting into a larger vision of housing, zoning, economic development, and public art.