City lights

By Roshma Vijay

Light plays a significant role in our daily lives. Urban lights create meaningful design to the city space. It helps us to understand the function of city at night. It focuses on human experiences and use of public space during the dark hours.

Urban light enables entertainment, stimulates economic and social activity, and generates vital and vibrant urban environments. It was the advent of the oil lamp, then gas powered lighting, electricity and the invention of the incandescent light bulb that opened the doors to expanding human activities into the hours after dark. Current advances in lighting technologies are fostering a new wave of innovation that has the potential to once again transform the way humans utilise and experience spaces in the hours of darkness.

Urban lighting consists of a wide range of layers and sources of light. Public space includes street lighting, traffic lights and the illumination of public buildings, monuments and spaces. Lights are powerful tool to create an atmosphere for a place; they greatly shape the sensorial experiences of our surroundings. In urban settings, it creates not merely a visual pleasure rather it helps in creating an arena for social and cultural exchange.