Publications

Outdoor lighting is an element featuring the urban environment that is becoming more and more relevant for urban planning, both in terms of influencing citizens’ health and wellbeing as well as the inclusiveness of people living in cities. While urban studies have already extensively investigated urban quality and liveability, there is still little attention on urban lighting as a relevant feature for ensuring high quality urban realms. Moreover, urban lighting can affect health and wellbeing of people and especially of the most vulnerable group of older adults. They suffer more than others not only of the lack of basic services such as public transport, but also of the inappropriate urban lighting that affects their social life, health and wellbeing.

The paper describes a method for including urban lighting as a factor for assessing urban quality, basing on the selection and mapping of key and easy to use indicators. The selected indicators have been tested in three European cities with different features in terms of latitude (that influence natural lighting and therefore the amount of exposure to artificial lighting), urban environments and lighting systems: Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Bologna (Italy), and Tartu (Estonia). The selection has been affected by data availability especially in the lighting domain, highlighting the need of deepening the composition of key lighting indicators at different urban scales.

The developed method allows to support policy makers in taking decisions about where and how to redesign the public lighting systems introducing health and wellbeing as a transversal issue to consider in every public policy.

Download publication on assessing outdoor lighting

Come sottolineato da Zielinska-Dabkowska (2019), al momento non esiste una definizione e un approccio condiviso a livello internazionale per il masterplan dell'illuminazione urbana (Urban Lighting Masterplan, ULM). Essendo uno strumento piuttosto recente, le sue strutture e gli obiettivi sono influenzati da vari fattori, dalla presenza di diversi professionisti coinvolti nel progetto di illuminazione urbana, dai vari lessici utilizzati e, infine, dalle differenze linguistiche. Tuttavia questi strumenti stanno attirando sempre più l'attenzione delle città, diventando un punto di riferimento per varie politiche urbane. Pertanto, individuare caratteristiche distintive e comuni, definendo i suoi scopi, obiettivi e contenuti ricorrenti, può costituire un valido riferimento per le città che intendono implementare questo tipo di piano.

Questo contributo intende fornire una panoramica iniziale dello stato dell'arte dei piani illuminotecnici, per identificare approcci comuni e temi ricorrenti, ma anche per comprendere in che termini la questione della salute e del benessere delle persone viene presa in considerazione. Pertanto, attraverso una revisione comparativa dei piani illuminotecnici e dei masterplan sia a livello europeo che non europeo, è possibile individuare e comprendere i temi più ricorrenti e quelli emergenti, con particolare attenzione alla salute e al benessere umano. La ricerca fa parte del progetto ENLIGTHENme, finanziato dalla Commissione Europea nell'ambito del programma Horizon2020, che ha tra i suoi obiettivi quello di orientare le politiche urbane volte a promuovere la salute e il benessere delle persone attraverso la luce artificiale sia urbana che indoor.

Download publication on lighting and health (Italian only)

Arredo & Città, the magazine of the NERI foundation, based in Italy, has dedicated its entire first issue of 2023 to the ENLIGHTENme project. Seven in-depth articles, authored by different members of the ENLIGHTENme consortium, introduce the breadth and depth of the ENLIGHTENme research in investigating the role indoor and outdoor lighting has on people's health and wellbeing. The articles of the magazine cover:

• The stars look down, but we don’t see them. Philosophical and ethical aspects of urban lighting by Mirko Ancillotti, Deborah Mascalzoni
• Towards innovative urban lighting policies. The ENLIGHTENme project by Elisa Conticelli, Giulia Marzani, Simona Tondelli
• The impact of lighting on people’s health and wellbeing. A multidisciplinary approach by Giulia Marzani, Elisa Conticelli, Peter Liljenberg, Sif Enevold, Jasmine van der Pol
• Lighting for better ageing by Elettra Bordonaro, Joanne Entwistle, Don Slater
• Building knowledge about lighting for health and wellbeing by Aitziber Egusquisa Ortega, Don Slater, Giulia Marzani
• ENLIGHTENme: how light affects our health and wellbeing by Francesco Nardi, Martina Romagnoli, Chiara La Morgia, Laura Maria Beatrice Belotti, Elisa Baldin, Flavia Baccari, Leonardo Caporali, Giulia Amore, Corrado Zenesini, Luca Vignatelli, Eleonora Pizzi, Alberto Pasti, Valerio Carelli, Francesco Nonino
• Visual and non-visual effects of lighting by Laura Bellia

The articles are available in both English and Italian.

The proceedings collect contributions presented during the international conference “Shaping light for health and wellbeing in cities”, organised in the framework of the Horizon2020 ENLIGHTENme project. The conference has investigated the multifaceted consequences light has on life in cities by adopting a multidisciplinary and integrated approach to explore the complexity of challenges urban lighting poses on health and wellbeing, urban realm and social life. The papers cover several disciplines such as clinical and biomedical sciences, ethics and Responsible Research & Innovation, urban planning and architecture, data accessibility and interoperability, as well as social sciences and economics, and provide multifaceted insights that inspire further explorations. Contributions represent a step towards the development of innovative policies for improving health and wellbeing in our cities, addressing indoor and outdoor lighting.