A design approach to socially adaptive lighting environments

Historically light has been a catalyst for social life to emerge. In recent years of lighting research the social effect of light has been underexposed. The environments we occupy on a daily basis are used for a wider variety of activities. Consequently, lighting conditions need to become sensitive to adapt to the variety of activities being performed. We argue that the effect of light on the social relations between people needs to be considered in order to make adaptive lighting environments viable. To design a socially adaptive lighting environment an approach needs to be used that is iterative, experiential and involves multiple users in an actual context. The design process is described in three stages (Interactive Sketching, a Design Experiment and Socially Situated Adaptive Experience); for each stage the aims, the setup, results and lessons learned are provided. In this process an experimental environment is used, named Incubation environment, which is set up as a dining environment and equipped with computer controllable lighting armatures. In the final design stage the Socially Situated Adaptive Experience technique is described and is found a suitable technique to design socially adaptive lighting environments.