Discussion on "Five" Factors Affecting Urban Lighting Design

Nowadays, the rapid development of urbanization is driving the rapid development of urban lighting facilities. As a city's lighting, from meeting the general public's travel and traffic needs, it gradually rises to how to reflect the cultural characteristics of the city, and gradually develops from meeting the functional lighting to green lighting. As an urban lighting designer, whether it is the overall planning of urban lighting, the regional planning of lighting, or the design of a street or a lane, we must first consider the overall planning of the city, the natural environment, cultural characteristics, economic development level and other factors. Only in this way can we not only meet the functional lighting of the city, but also fully reflect the personality of urban lighting, avoid the phenomenon that the city is illuminated by thousands of cities, and achieve the ideal effect of urban lighting. Therefore, the factors that affect urban lighting design are unavoidable problems that must be faced in urban lighting construction. In this paper, several factors affecting urban lighting design are discussed.

I. Natural environmental factors

The environment is an extremely complex and rich natural complex, and there are many fields that have not been known by people, or are not well understood, and are waiting for people to discover and explore. The natural environment discussed here focuses on the natural environment directly related to the biosphere, that is, the natural environment directly related to landscape lighting. According to the nature of environmental components and their adaptation to human beings, the natural environment can be divided into physical environment, chemical environment, biological environment and social environment.

1. Physical environment

Components of physical environment include temperature, air flow, air pressure, sound, light, radiation, etc. When these factors are in the natural state, they will give people direct stimulation, and people will get feelings and make behavioral responses accordingly. Among these factors, the direct contact with landscape lighting design is "light". Light is a language that can express the design idea and artistic pursuit of lighting designers; Light is a kind of recessive software, which controls the functional operation of cities and buildings and the deduction of images and colors. Light is "the fourth dimension of architecture". Therefore, when designing lighting, landscape lighting designers should actively understand, observe and use light, actively participate in the design of light environment, integrate light into their own planning and creation, and add "light" and "color" to cities and buildings.

2. Chemical environment

The components of the environment include air and various gases, water, dust, chemicals, etc. Oxidation of air lamps, corrosion of water to lamps, obstruction of light by dust, etc. will all affect the final result of landscape design. Therefore, when choosing lamps and lanterns, landscape lighting designers all require their waterproof and dust levels to reach a certain standard, that is, the IP protection level usually mentioned.

3. Biological environment

The environment is made up of animals, plants and microorganisms, including human beings. When landscape lighting design is needed for a building, the species, growth and distribution of local animals and plants, the present and future development and change rules should be taken into account. While designing the lighting of the building itself, it is also necessary to design the surrounding flowers, trees, rest facilities, etc., so as to form a complete lighting landscape.

4. Social environment

The social environment refers to the humanistic environment centered on interpersonal relationships, which covers a wide range of contents and has a certain influence on landscape lighting design.

Second, the human environment factors

Humanistic environment is a very comprehensive ecological environment unique to human society, including politics, culture, art, science, religion, aesthetics and so on. A perfect humanistic environment must be in line with nature, and it is the protection and perfection of the natural environment. It is a reflection of the accumulation of environmental culture, and at the same time, culture is slowly affecting the environment. For a city, the fixed environment should include roads, buildings, gardens, lights, lawns, etc. But when people are integrated into it, people are prosperous and there is mobility. Communication between people and the environment can take away the culture of the environment, and at the same time, the environment will also have an impact on people's ideas. This is the relationship that we often talk about, that is, there is stillness in moving, there is movement in stillness, and movement and static are coexisting.

Humanistic environment is one of the most important factors affecting lighting design. The design made by lighting designers is actually to create an atmosphere, a kind of culture that can be vividly portrayed. This kind of culture exists objectively, and you may not see or touch it, but you can feel it, and at the same time deduce your feelings and influence your mood. There are too many roads, buildings and landscape lighting in modern cities. As a whole, they always feel a little stiff. In fact, it is because the lighting emphasizes too much technology and ignores the cultural state, which makes people feel that they are passively accepting things. The focus of lighting should be nature and harmony, so designers should comprehensively consider the layout, line, color, proportion, scale, texture, light, rhythm and rhythm of roads, buildings and landscapes when designing, so that viewers can actively search, dig, experience and ponder their taste. The designer's duty is to create a comfortable environment, light and atmosphere, guide people to beautiful aspects, make people actively pursue beauty, and give people a comfortable and relaxed mood.

There are light pollution, visual pollution, color pollution, psychological pollution and so on. From the light of the existing lighting settings, there are mainly the following four aspects:

(1) The light color, surface illuminance of the illuminated area and objects are not in harmony with the functions, properties and environment of the illuminated area and objects, which makes people feel uncomfortable;

(2) Lighting lamps and lanterns are set in a large-area way regardless of the occasion, which causes the illuminated objects to have no hierarchy and three-dimensional sense, and at the same time causes light pollution, which seriously interferes with people's normal life;

(3) A large number of high-power floodlights are used in tall buildings. Due to the influence of factors such as projection direction and projection angle, about one-third to one-half of the light rays shoot into the sky, forming light pillars, thus causing light pollution over the city, seriously affecting astronomical observation and airplane landing;

(4) Some lamps installed around gardens, green spaces, roads, sculptures and landscapes cause glare to pedestrians, vehicles and tourists who rest and entertain in this area, which not only damages the rest environment but also endangers driving safety.

With the progress of society and the standardization of management, I believe they will be cured. At the same time, we have the responsibility to promote them to the society, influence the environmental state, protect the environment and protect ourselves.

III. Construction or Investor Factors

In the field of urban lighting, the diversification of investment subjects makes lighting designers face numerous owners, that is, the market economy determines that the owner units must take different attitudes towards the lighting design projects implemented according to their respective economic interests: the commercial lighting owners, because the implementation of lighting can bring business opportunities and improve economic benefits, are highly motivated, but they have the phenomenon of comparing brightness with each other and competing for high and low, and blindly increase lighting facilities. This not only increases investment, but also destroys the overall artistic effect of the region. Non-commercial lighting owners, because the implementation of lighting has only economic input but no return, are not enthusiastic or reduce their input as much as possible, which also affects the overall effect of the area. At the same time, due to the depth of the owners' understanding of lighting and the differences in their personal thinking, consciousness, hobbies and aesthetic views, colorful lighting effects have been formed. For example, the government office building actually uses green light for lighting, which makes people feel eerie, rather than the solemnity and solemnity of the government building. Actually, different light colors should be selected for different lighting objects. Colors are closely related to people's emotions, such as blue makes people feel peaceful and satisfied, yellow makes people feel brilliant and excited, red makes people eager to win and rejuvenate, the interweaving of red and green makes people feel strong, reliable and determined, light blue can make people feel safe and self-respecting, and warm colors such as red, orange and yellow can make people excited and warm, etc. Under normal circumstances, cool colors such as green, blue and purple should be used with caution. Improper use can easily make people feel gloomy and cold.

IV. Technical level factors of lighting equipment

Since the reform and opening up, China's lighting technology has undergone great changes from light sources, lighting appliances to lighting engineering design. From incandescent lamp and straight tube fluorescent lamp with single light source, it has developed into halogen tungsten lamp, fluorescent high-pressure mercury lamp, high-pressure sodium lamp, metal halide lamp, compact fluorescent lamp, electrodeless lamp and LED lamp.

In lighting equipment, the development of lamps is relatively slow, and the important role of lamps is often ignored for a long time. In the past 20 years, with the rapid development of new light sources, new lamps and lanterns have appeared constantly. These new lamps and lanterns have the following common characteristics:

(1) With the need of new light sources, we have developed supporting lamps, such as high-pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps.

(2) There is a qualitative leap in the materials and processing technology for manufacturing lamps. If the reflective surface is made of high-quality and high-purity aluminum plate, the surface reflectivity can be as high as 88% to 92%. The diffuser of the lamp is made of prism-shaped plastic plate, milky white antistatic acrylic resin plate and other materials, with high transmittance, good dustproof and anti-aging performance.

(3) Reasonable lamp design and advanced design means, according to the space state, environmental conditions and requirements of the place of use, determine the light distribution type of lamps and lanterns, and use computer-aided design to determine the shape of reflecting surface, thus achieving high lamp efficiency.

(4) After testing by the authoritative quality supervision and testing center of lamps and lanterns, the performance of the lamps and lanterns is up to standard, and a set of practical lighting calculation parameters, including light distribution curve and utilization coefficient table, are obtained, which can be used for lighting engineering design.

Since 1950s, most new light sources have used inductive ballasts. The ballast is stable, good in quality, low in price and popular. But it also has many shortcomings:

(1) its own power loss is large;

(2) easy to generate noise;

(3) Severe stroboscopic effect impairs eyesight;

(4) Copper and silicon steel sheets have high material loss and heavy weight;

(5) Long-term use may cause fire due to excessive temperature rise;

Driven by the high-frequency electronic ballasts developed by advanced countries, after more than 10 years of efforts, our electronic ballasts have reached the international advanced level. It has many advantages over inductance ballast:

(1) Good energy-saving effect, which can save electricity by 20% to 25% under the same luminous flux output;

(2) The lamp tube works at the frequency of 20 to 50kHz, which eliminates the stroboscopic effect, emits light stably, and is beneficial to protecting eyesight and reducing visual fatigue;

(3) noise is eliminated;

(4) the influence of power supply voltage deviation and fluctuation on luminous flux is reduced;

(5) The dimming of fluorescent lamps can be realized.

With the development of urban lighting, high-tech and high-tech lighting equipment have begun to be popularized and applied in urban lighting engineering, such as laser lighting, computer searchlight, high-altitude light bulb, optical fiber lighting system, light-emitting diode band, electrodeless fluorescent lamp, etc., which have been applied in the field of urban lighting engineering. Not only have they achieved the lighting effect that is difficult to achieve by general lighting methods, but also have significantly improved the technological level of urban lighting.

To sum up, with the continuous improvement of the technical level of urban lighting equipment, the choice of lighting designers in lighting design is greatly increased, and the continuous emergence of new and high technologies will make the finishing touch on urban lighting design.

V. Feasibility factors of the scheme

The design of every project has its own regularity. If it violates the development law of this thing, it will take many detours or fail to achieve ideal results. The same is true for the design of lighting, which is an organic combination of lighting and art, and a clever arrangement of lighting and original landscape elements, including rational views and perceptual views. The feasibility factors of the scheme mainly include three aspects: investor, lighting designer's conception and intention, and site environment.

Lighting design is different from other designs to some extent, which is greatly influenced by investment. It is the most basic to meet the functional requirements. How to make the landscape lighting more beautiful at night on the premise of meeting the functional requirements will be affected by the scale of investment, and with the continuous development of high technology in recent years, investment in the practical application of lighting becomes more important.

Lighting designers should fully understand the attributes, functions, environment, viewpoints, appearance features, styles, etc. of lighting objects, especially their creativity, design intent, content to be displayed, and related drawings of lighting design. For objects with different attributes, how lighting designers use light, lamps and colors, what purpose they achieve, and what effect they show are very different. The positioning of lighting environment, that is, the spatial relationship, must be coordinated with the environment when determining the brightness standard. It should be just right, not the brighter the better. It is necessary to overcome the psychology of comparing with each other and avoid only emphasizing the lighting object, regardless of the surrounding light environment.

The viewpoint positioning is to set the main viewpoint and the best viewpoint on the basis of analyzing several viewpoints (far, near, high, low, and surrounding) that are possible to watch the lighting, and from this point of view, to conceive the overall effect and specific scheme of the lighting. The lighting of many cities has its own unique form, which has become the landmark building of this city, and it has been deeply left in people's memory with its strong recognition. As a lighting designer, no matter what lighting method is adopted, we must respect and rely on its unique form, not only express its existence in lighting language, but also establish its symbolic position in people's minds during the day at night: if the lighting method is improper and distorts the inherent form of the lighting object, it will be evaluated as a "failure".

At the same time, lighting should reflect the style of the landscape. Without style, there is no personality, let alone taste. Some lighting has a strong national style, some are full of modern flavor, some are modern style, and some are very local, and these styles are often fully displayed in the form and appearance of lighting through various design techniques; Different lighting methods and techniques are adopted for different lighting styles.

The scene environment includes the brightness of the background of the lighting object, the local night scene lighting, the local people's love or preference for color, customs and power supply, etc.

Of course, there are many factors that affect the urban lighting design, such as the level of economic development, cultural concepts, etc. As long as all kinds of factors are considered comprehensively before the urban lighting design, it will provide a real and reliable basis for the formulation of urban lighting design scheme, and finally achieve the ideal effect of urban lighting.