Sustainability - Is it only performance?

Philips' interior lighting at The Watch House in Al Bawadi Mall, Al Ain
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Ever since human-beings have lived on Earth, daylight has been important both for and in life. In architecture, sun orientation contributes to the delight of working or living in a space. This notion of comfort created by light, emotions generated by light is essential for the health and well-being in place.

Some people in United Kingdom, but even more in Alaska, Russia and Scandinavian countries, suffer from seasonal affective disorder as a result of the lack of daylight, both in quantity and quality.

These winter blues can cause dramatic mood swings but can be treated by light therapy using high quality light sources with a good spectrum. Sustainability in all senses—daylight, heating, water and controls—is taken seriously by architects.

Lighting is an actor of sustainability going beyond the implementation of environment and human consumption parameters. Of course, energy performance or recycling of lamps and luminaires is important, but for architects and lighting designers the quality of light is a far greater issue since it makes a major contribution to the experience of the end users.

For architecture, sustainable lighting is a question of mood, brightness and colour. Just as daylight differs in summer and winter, so flexible lighting adds meaning according to the use of the place or the moment of the night.

Sustainability has become the industry’s biggest buzzword – but architects, lighting designers and manufactures cannot solve all the problems alone, it is a long term concern of society where each actor has his or her responsibility towards climate change. It is up to those architects and lighting designers to define tone, rhythm and saturation that produce the right light for the right context.

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Mental health fact:

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression or winter blues, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or, less frequently, in the summer, spring or autumn, repeatedly, year after year. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), SAD is not a unique mood disorder, but is “a specifier of depression”.

The US National Library of Medicine notes that: “Some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and crave sweets and starchy foods. They may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually clear up.” It has been estimated that 1.5-9% of adults in the US experience SAD.

There are many different treatments for classic (winter-based) seasonal affective disorder, including light therapy with sunlight or bright lights, antidepressant medication, cognitive-behavioral therapy, ionized-air administration and carefully-timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin.

Source: Wikipedia