Awareness on Indoor Lighting
During ENLIGHTENme, the research team worked closely with local residents in the three ENLIGHTENme cities Amsterdam, Tartu and Bologna to establish how simple changes in indoor lighting can make a real difference in how people, like you and me, feel and act in their homes.
Take control of the lighting in your home for a better quality of life - Simple considerations to improve your home
Have you put much thought in how the lighting in your home can support your daily indoor activities and wellbeing?
Have you considered that inappropriate lighting can hinder you in enjoying your home life to the full and prevent you from activities you love doing?
Being aware of the difference small changes in your home lighting can make, could help you take control of the space where you spend much of your time. Turning your attention to your lighting can change how you feel and act in your home. Lighting needs to consider factor such as age, gender and ethnicity as well as physical aspects, such as eye conditions or mobility.
Also lighting preferences are highly individual and there is hardly one solution that fits everyone. Nevertheless, we would like to invite you to look at the lighting in your home with new eyes and curiosity. For this, you can use this short checklist of pointers that help you reflect on your lighting set-up.
Checklist
Go room by room or focus on a particular room where you spend time on specific activities, e.g. kitchen, sitting room, desk etc. This can also include your corridors and entryways. Answer yourself these key questions:
- What do you want to be doing in this room (a specific activity)?
- Where exactly (a desk, chair etc.)?
- How would you like to feel (in that position or the overall room)?
- What are the lighting conditions?
The key aspects to consider here are:
- Brightness – do you perceive the light bright enough for what you are trying to do?
- Colour temperature – this is the colour of light: does it appear more yellow and warm like candlelight or a cozy lamp, or bluer and cooler like daylight or a clear sky?
- Glare - is a light too bright or harsh, making it uncomfortable to see clearly or even giving you a headache?
- Position – where is the light source placed relative to the space, objects, or people being illuminated? Is the light pointing in the right direction?
- Direction – does the light shine directly to the object or surface you would like to be lit (good for activities such as doing handcrafts, reading or cooking) or does it light a room indirectly (good for creating atmosphere and comfort)?
Recommendations
Depending on the insights you get from your little home audit, here are examples of what you can do to alter:
- Brightness – Try to reposition the lamp or replace the current bulb with one of higher wattage for more brightness or lower wattage for less brightness.
- Colour temperature – replace the existing bulb with one that has your preferred colour temperature, e.g. warm white 2700K or daylight 4000K. If possible buy one of each colour temperature to see which one suits you best.
- Glare – experiment with the position of existing lamps or add (if possible) additional lights, shades or low-glare LED.
- Position – experiment with different positions of the lamp and see whether this makes a difference.
- Direction – try different lighting angles to achieve direct illumination of an object or indirect illumination through directing the light toward a wall or ceiling for different effects.
Try to explore the lighting during the day and evening to find out what works best for you.
Stay flexible and curious about the lighting in your home. Some very small adjustments can make a significant difference in the way you feel and act. Do not let bad lighting stop you from doing the things you enjoy!