Shining the Light on Work Spaces

Long, dark winter days naturally affects my motivation to physically move. I would much prefer staying indoors and next to the warm radiator. Christmas lights are out though and that’s always enough to lift my spirits during the cold season. But soon the January post-festive season slump will hit, and everyone will continue on their daily grind whilst counting down to summer. And don’t we love summer! The promise of warmer weather, sunny days, and the burst of activities throughout London. There’s no denying that longer daylight brings about new energy amongst us, almost as if the city is just waking up. Natural light has such a profound impact on our circadian rhythm - so imagine how we can control our psychological behaviours with artificial lighting?

Lighting is commonly the last thing that is noticed when entering a space - unless it is poorly design. We notice a poorly lit room or a room too bright. But when done right, it blends with the overall design. As a result, the importance of its role is overlooked at times. In a workplace, lighting can do more than just brightening up a room; it can influence the psychology of a worker. When applied appropriately, lights can zone a workplace for productive areas and for areas to destress. This opens up a whole study on the correlation between a lit environment and an individual’s mood and emotions.

At Light23 stage talks, the topic “Designing for Healthy Office Spaces” was discussed by panelists Beata Denton, Lead Lighting Designer at Reform (part of Reflex Arkitekter), Simon Kincaid, Partner at Conran & Partners, Miguel Aguado, Marketing and Technology Manager at Lutron, and Natalia Duffy, Associate at Cundall. Moderated by Samta Nadeem, Curatorial Director at STIRworld, the panel considered the relationship between lighting and employee wellbeing.

Setting the context for what wellbeing in the workplace looks like, the panelists established that:

• Wellbeing is about being nourished and stimulated - and in the workplace, to be people-centric;

• A work environment with visual access to daylight, nature and general cleanliness;

• Recognising that a ‘comfortable workspace’ is not a uniform definition to all individuals;

• Accessibility to different work zones with different lighting, depending on the purpose of the room, the task at hand, and the mood to be achieved; and

• Providing a degree of control to employees over their lighting environment in the workplace.

The ideal workplace where a variety of light settings is created to support employee wellbeing is not without its challenges. Miguel Aguado emphasised that throughout every design project, there is a stark absence of a dedicated individual on the project team in charge of assessing the end user’s experience. Coupled with lighting design commonly being an afterthought late in a project timeline, the full potential of lights on wellbeing is commonly not realised.

Other considerations were also discussed by the panel, including:

• Complicated light controls that are difficult for users to understand and use;

• The question of the extent of lighting control to give employees, particularly if it affects a general area;

• The need to still limit user control to incorporate automated energy saving light settings; and

• The political controversy of lighting control, where select individuals decide what is “well” for the other users in the space.

Natalia Duffy noted that the degree of lighting control depended on the client’s preference and the brief. Miguel asserted that general areas should have dynamic lighting whilst more control may be given to dedicated areas such as meeting rooms. And Simon Kincaid commented on the continued role of analogue controls for personal task lighting, as part of a necessary layering of lighting design. All panelists agreed that the type of client sector would determine where money would be allocated towards lighting; Beata Denton presented a case study of the gaming sector, where client investments are prioritised towards task lighting over general lighting.

The panel speakers addressed the need to educate the client. Some design tips from the experts include:

• Avoid blanket lighting in general areas - low lighting along walls of a corridor for instance, creates a journey;

• Use pools of lighting over flat lighting;

• Create shadows not above desks, but in breakout areas and other more intimate spaces; and

• Use of circadian lighting and plants to bring the outside in.

When posed with the idea of light manipulation to improve employee productivity, the ethics of lighting design came into question. Natalia highlighted the lack of ethicality in using lighting to increase work hours and thereby eventual burnout amongst staff. The panel speakers agreed that a code of ethics in design is an area requiring further development. 

The speakers then addressed the limitation on creativity by regulatory requirements, legal standardisation and lighting technicality. Miguel noted the importance of involving the lighting technical designer at the start of a project to minimise such limitation, whilst Natalia stated the need for designers to continually challenge each other. To push creative boundaries, Simon emphasised the need for creating ‘mock ups’ to demonstrate to clients what a potential design could look like; limiting client presentations to boardroom discussions and past design examples would only hamper creativity.

“We need investments from ambitious clients to push boundaries.”

- Simon Kincaid

The moderator questioned how sustainable performing mock up designs are, which Miguel quickly dismissed as it is perceived to be more wasteful to have a poor design that would lead to a premature strip out and redesign; this is particularly true of resi-commercial projects.

“Mock up [of a design] is like an insurance.”

- Miguel Aguado

The panel speakers closed their discussion with their desire to be challenged by clients as well as challenging their own design teams and engineers. It was recognised that creative lighting design now extends beyond just the lobby area and instead, into the office work area as well. Furthermore, there is a need to design for purpose, and to understand the function of a space in order to make it aspirational.

Tying back to the topic of wellbeing in office spaces, it was apparent from the onstage discussion that lighting design is a multifaceted discipline which ultimately will have an impact on its end user. When considering the elements of the lighting design process, ranging from the technical and control details, to creativity and psychological manipulation, it is evident that lighting is more than a simple on/off switch.