This research offers a new approach to architectural design by suggesting that artificial light could be included in the architect’s conceptual toolbox. An exploration of the lighting techniques currently used in interior design shows a direct connection between artificial light and architectural design. This is followed by an investigation of innovative lighting applications that are based on new materials. These materials either emit light themselves or can be connected to light in different ways to radiate light. For this thesis the word lighterials has been coined to distinguish them from opaque, non-light-related materials. After lighterials have been accepted as an architectural group of forms, the architectural space is analysed in terms of its most important elements with reference to artificial lighting and interior architecture. Within this scope a new element, poetics, is introduced, bringing the two design fields even closer together. The question is asked: How can lighterials influence architectural design, including the poetics of a space? The question is tackled by three different studies, a pilot study, a case study and interviews, which employed architecture students, lighting design students and professional architects respectively. The first study provides information about future trends around lighterials and the second about how lighting designers could use lighterials. In the third and main study, using the methodologies of think-aloud protocol, structured interviews and questionnaires, the architects indicate through their use of lighterials in design how lighterials could influence architectural space and its poetics. From analysis of these studies it is apparent that these new lighting applications have the potential to completely change or to enhance an architect’s design. Further, the incorporation of lighterials in design can dramatically change the user’s experience of a space. In its examination of new characteristics of light as architectural form this research offers a unique contribution to the field.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:626129 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Papakammenou, V. |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1388845/ |
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