Engaging Public Light: Social Design Strategies for the Pedestrian Nightscape

METHODOLOGIES OF PRACTICE My design practice is rooted in the theatre, where tactility and connectedness emerge with the “real-time� quality of live performance. Live theatre demands an acute sense of awareness, reading the audience, and improvisation. Because of our investment in story telling and in grappling with the human condition, each project requires that we reinvestigate our world through the bodies of our characters. For me, design as social practice inhabits these same values and demands an empathetic focus on the people for whom we design.

Light is one of the primary components of the public spaces we share with others so this thesis positions the design of lighting as a social practice. As we navigate through the city, the many characteristics of light determine much of our experience and interactions. Light, in this circumstance, performs many more roles than what might be customarily associated with visibility and orientation.

Like light, the public domain is incredibly complex. In an attempt to identify and address this complexity, I have explored my project as both a transdisciplinary designer and a lighting designer and expand the research and development to domains traditionally outside of the lighting field. This includes collaborative work with other designers, movement practitioners, civic leaders and community members. My desire to seek the expertise of others results from a reluctance to make dangerous assumptions about such a potentially wicked problem space. I also hoped that a self-conscious, reflexive process would ensure a familiarity and relevance with the people and places involved in each project.

Given the transient nature of public space, I framed my research from the pedestrian’s point of view. Placing the individual so centrally in my research has led to a series of inquiries about the body, its movements and the unique perspective of the city that is viewed from the street. After identifying three central tools from my own history of practice - movement, tactility and light - I sought to better understand how an individual might experience public space and the conditions that generate a deeper engagement. Engagement, in this case, is an 8