Nocturnal Architecture of Buildings: Interaction of Exterior Lighting and Visual Beauty

Abstract

Exterior lighting of buildings and their appearance at night is an important issue in architectural design. While the effect of natural daylight on the appearance of a building during the day is not completely under the control of the designer, exterior lighting at night is a design choice that can strongly effects the beauty of a building. The current research Delft University of Technology examined the effect of exterior lighting on the appearance of buildings at night using a questionnaire-based research methodology accompanied by in-depth statistical analysis of the results. The aspects addressed are how exterior lighting and its elements, such as luminous intensity (low vs. high intensity), colour diversity (single vs. multiple colour), lighting type (accent vs. uniform), and lighting state (harmonized vs. diversified), can affect the perception of the beauty of a building facade at night. The results confirm that exterior lighting of buildings substantially increases the beauty of the facades at night. The beauty of buildings increases with the use of single-colour accent lights in harmony with the facade and as the light intensity increases. On the other hand, the use of multi-colour or uniform lights with low intensity or not in harmony with the facade negatively impacts the beauty of the buildings. The results also indicate that light intensity and lighting types affect the perception of beauty of building facades more than colour diversity and lighting conditions.