Light across Disciplines and Times: A Walking Seminar at the Stockholm Public Library

Abstract

Lighting in buildings today is a multi-disciplinary task. Increased complexity and specialization have led to a split process where coordination between disciplines is lacking. Despite extensive technical development, daylight and electric light are still planned in separate processes, often resulting in over-lit environments where energy savings, health and spatial potentials of daylight are not fully utilized. To address these problems, this paper introduces the walking seminar as a method to bridge and increase knowledge across disciplines in the field of lighting. The seminar was held at the Stockholm Public Library, and included invited participants with different professions and expertise: an architect, an electrical consultant, a lighting designer, a librarian, a caretaker, and an architectural historian who shared their perspectives on light. Based on the seminar, findings relevant for today’s practice are presented, both for the specific case in itself, a listed building and an active library, and at a more general level concerning lighting standards and the interaction of daylight and electric light. The main future task for the building sector is to preserve and develop our existing building stock, which includes lighting. Sustainable and long-term solutions require that daylight, electric light and spatial lighting design are planned as an integrated whole, based on the characteristics of the specific building. Findings from the walking seminar presented in this paper point at the importance and potential in transdisciplinary dialogue to enable the development of long-term lighting solutions in our existing and future buildings.