ABSTRACT

Empirical studies on residents’ opinions and views on light and darkness are relatively rare, so the knowledge about the attitudes of the addressees-and thus the users-of artifi cial outdoor lighting is very limited. The trends in artifi cial lighting are deeply rooted in technical research and technical standards (like the EN 13201 in Europe). Based on this knowledge the decisions in the lighting practice are mostly achieved by light engineers or the local administrations. But the residents and those out at night are the ones who are infl uenced night after night by the lighting systems and rising light levels. Instead of focusing on the stakeholders’ planning and implementing outdoor lighting, the study introduced here focused on the residents as users of artifi cial outdoor lighting. It is obvious that our culture (this is, for example, illustrated through expressions such as “to bring light into the darkness”) favours light in general, but public debates rarely go beyond such images. An individual assessment on light and darkness by the residents may show a more detailed picture about perceptions of light and darkness.