The role of poetics in architectural lighting design

Abstract

Architectural lighting design is generally believed to have visual and psychological consequences on humans, and has been investigated either as an artistic or a scientific endeavour. This paper explores the possibility that these two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive with a poetic approach. It builds upon two arguments: the first is that poetry, being an inherently compositional system like language, impacts the perceived meaning of lit environments; the second is that humans seek qualities with experiential richness when interacting with lit environments, which is very much aligned with poetry. This reasoning is supplemented by reflections on the poetic possibilities within realised projects used as simple artistic and scientific case studies to demonstrate this complex visual and psychological interplay. Opinions from academics and professionals from the field of architectural lighting design are sought on these poetic possibilities, the appropriateness of these realised projects in expressing their respective qualities, and on the role of poetics in architectural lighting design in general.