How does light help to safely and quickly achieve a destination?
Guiding and leading with light
Light supports the users and visitors of public buildings to more easily find their way through the building so that destinations are reached more quickly and reliably.
Guiding and leading with light
Showing the way with light
Finding your way about in large public buildings such as civil authorities, universities, railway stations and airports is a major challenge. To enable visitors and users to move around buildings in a reliable and safe way, circulation routes and areas such as stairways and lift foyers should be visually emphasized. Linear lighting is highly suitable for marking routes. Routes into the distance such as corridors or steps should not lead into darkness: vertical lighting helps here to mark the destination point and make it recognizable from a distance.
Grading the room depth with light
Peripheral room surfaces clearly defined via light create a clear view and facilitate orientation in public buildings. In the architecture example this is particularly demonstrated by the wallwashing in the rear room area. This is achieved with ceiling-recessed lens wallwashers. The bright room impression arouses interest, emphasizes the room dimensions and helps to guide in this building section. The grazing light on the other hand delineates the walls of the lift shaft in the foreground. Vertical lighting renders legible the graduated depths of the architecture.
Marking openings with light
Orientation for the visitors and users of public buildings can be significantly simplified by using accent lighting to emphasize elements of vertical accessibility such as stairs, escalators and lift systems. Recessed spotlights for example are ideal for setting light accents at the bottom of a staircase or in front of the lift. In a similar way, signage, elements of the guidance system or highly noticeable objects also benefit from additional delineation via directed, brilliant light.
Identifying faces with light for viewing
Planar, horizontal general lighting in the room, e.g. from downlights, contributes to achieving a pleasant room atmosphere also via its semi-cylindrical illuminance. This is important for recognizing the faces of other people and also for improving the feeling of safety and security. If various building areas according to their use are also illuminated in a differentiated way, they become more easily recognizable: this also helps with orientation.
ERCO light guide: Community
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