DELIGHT – DEsigning LIGHT for real-world challenges

In the lighting design elective of the faculty Industrial Design Engineering students learn to compose and elaborate a lighting plan or installation for a real-world challenge. Light is hard to design because intangible and often behaving in unexpected ways due to complicated interactions with materials and architectural structures, both in digital models and real environments. Designing light demands a lot of hands-on experimenting in addition to specialized technical and neuro-psycho-social knowledge. In this elective the students get a first introduction to this field and its players, via lectures by researchers and practitioners, workshops, individual and group assignments. Here we present abstracts of the concepts that resulted from the student groups’ explorations.

They worked on group assignments involving design challenges such as:

• How can a lighting atmosphere induce a certain mood or express a meaning?
• How can we reduce light pollution, or design for darkness, but still create a safely perceived environment?
• How can we use daylighting while controlling light levels, temperature, and beauty?
• How can we design biophylic lighting for pleasurable and comfortable waking, sleeping and light therapy?
• How can lighting and visual stimulation induce activations in another sensory channel?

Discover the four groups who made designs for Highlight Delft