Can light recount a city? Yes, and it does so in all its different forms of expression. At night, lighting radically changes the urban scenarios we see during the day, which means it can tell the story of a city by focusing on certain locations and highlighting specific buildings, details and other elements. But not only. Adequate lighting, in fact, can affect our nocturnal perception of an environment and obtain explicit responses.

Recent research analyses this relationship between emotions and urban lighting scenarios. The focus is on the emotions experienced by participants in open air public spaces, like pedestrian areas, parks and other spaces.

How light conditions emotions and experiences

The results of this research show how emotions are linked more closely to specific lighting experiences than to the appearance of a location. Varying certain parameters like intensity, colour, direction and light diffusion obtains different reactions. Even if certain emotions depend on the observer’s cultural background, these results show that the emotions felt by all the target participants, such as uncertainty, fear, fascination, entertainment and affection, were consistent.

Emotions of fear and uncertainty depend on how much visual information is perceived at a location. People feel fear when visual information is scarce (large areas without lighting), whereas they experience uncertainty when there is slightly more visual information (large areas with only a few light points or low intensity illumination). The main lighting parameter that affects these emotion is therefore light intensity.

A sensation of fascination is felt when there is high intensity lighting focused on unusual decorative elements with a strong surprise factor (like uplight, coloured lighting or a high CRI). Entertainment, like fascination, is felt when there is high intensity lighting with a strong surprise factor, focused on areas used for sporting or recreational activities rather than on decorative elements. The lighting parameters that affect these emotions are therefore lighting intensity, direction, diffusion and colour.

Affection is perceived through warm, medium intensity lighting in meeting areas and reduced lighting contrasts that create a slightly blurred effect. The lighting parameters that affect these emotions are therefore lighting intensity, direction, diffusion and colour. The way in which light is used to recount a city to us, therefore, determines not only our appreciation of the illuminated space, but also how we feel and consequently behave in it Urban design cannot, therefore, be limited to just technical aspects or the need to comply with lighting standards. Instead, they need to trust in lighting designers who can evaluate not only the biological impact of urban lighting, but its cognitive and emotional elements too.