Confidential client, Seattle. Photo © Art Gray
There’s an old saying that lighting design is as much about designing with shadow as it is about designing with light, but that doesn’t apply to the workplace because the work environment needs to be evenly lit, right? Wrong. What the saying refers to is one of the most important roles of architectural lighting: the need to add variation and visual contrast within the built environment. Does that imply that workplace lighting can also meet the visual needs/preferences of today’s diverse workforce and provide individual comfort zones? Two current trends suggest that it does: employers’ increasing sensitivity to the requirements of a diverse population of workers and open seating office environments that eschew permanently assigned seats.
In the spaces where we work, different lighting preferences are driven by several factors, among them the type of work we do, neurodevelopmental factors, and age. I have yet to meet a programmer who doesn’t prefer working in low-light conditions (the more cave-like the better), although workers who still handle paperwork mostly prefer higher light levels. And those on the autism spectrum can be especially hypersensitive to glare; environments with too much direct sunlight or “sparkly” decorative lighting can have a negative impact.
It is widely known that as we grow older we need more light to perform the same visual tasks as our younger counterparts (a 65-year-old can require as much as four times more task illuminance than a 24-year-old). We gravitate towards areas with increased light levels as we age. Also, age-related eye disorders, for instance cataracts, can cause increased sensitivity to glare.