Designing with darkness as a starting pointBy Jane Slade
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The experience of night on the planet is as old as the earth itself. Over four-and- a-half-billion years ago, spinning dust and gas collapsed unto itself through gravitational forces and formed into what is now our turning planet. Rotating on a 23-and-a-half-deg axis as it revolves around the sun, these spatial characteristics have formed the basis for our current length of day and seasons, for which all life on Earth evolved. Up until this modern moment in planetary history, darkness has always fallen with every setting sun.
Humans are forgetting the night. When we began chasing lumens per watt to save energy, we created an entirely new environmental disaster: light pollution. Right now, the planet has never been brighter in recorded history. It has also never been hotter. When we rapidly change fundamental environmental factors such as light and temperature, we create harm and disorder that ripple out in shockwaves through Earth’s delicately balanced ecosystems.
Humans are also harmed. Light at night is not just disruptive and carcinogenic, it is a mental-health issue. If you have ever checked your email late at night and did not sleep because of the information received, then you are suffering from light pollution. Light has gained territory in nearly every waking experience of our lives, transforming periods of natural darkness that were once devoted to rest and recovery into constant stimulation. We are suffering from languishing and burnout.
Currently, darkness is not a default consideration in projects. Most begin from the starting place of illumination only, with a lighting design plan, but few include a darkness design plan.1 This omission is a glaring indication that our thinking is one-sided, that we do not think of darkness as a starting place, but rather as a lack of light. Moreover, our default is to leave the lights on. In many cases, it is with a grave lack of intention and not based in human need, but rather the simple fact that lighting is not designed to be turned down or off.
As light pollution grows exponentially each year, natural darkness is becoming an afterthought for humanity. Constant light at night is changing the way we experience the planet, not only by causing untold harm, but also by blocking all the riches and splendors of natural darkness. Without a collective understanding of both the ecological necessity as well as the striking benefits of natural darkness, we will continue to lose the frontier of the night.
On every level, darkness plays an important role of living on the planet, from ecology to history, design, culture, philosophy, psychology and cosmology. It is therefore critical that we pursue a formal study of natural darkness as a call to action and a counter-response to the thinking that created unchecked light pollution. Tenebrisology2 is the study of natural darkness from its own starting point. By understanding darkness as a fundamental natural element, we can develop thought to offer balance and richness to the current discourse that is dominated by illumination.
The study of tenebrisology is an opportunity to create building blocks and frameworks to reclaim natural darkness on the planet, such as language, culture, terminology and metrics. New darkness design resources are beginning to emerge, such as “The Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting” from the IDA and the IES; the LUNA program from the DLC; and new terms that hold space for the concept of natural darkness such as the introduction of a civil midnight,3 defined as the onset of shared periods of natural darkness.
New metrics are also being developed to build awareness by creating benchmarks that incentivize the reduction of impact over time, such as Full Darkness Hours (FDH), which allow communities to track and measure time spent at full darkness, and Unnatural Lumen Hours (ULH), which track and measure lighting outside of the natural daylight cycle.4
Yet more is needed to properly equip communities with the tools to cultivate, measure and incentivize darkness. The Model Lighting Ordinance (MLO) is now over 10 years old and was not widely adopted due to complexity. The Bortle Scale was developed by an astronomer to analyze sky glow and is now over 20 years old. The development of more modern tools and other scales based in design principles rather than astronomy may prove more useful for community lighting and darkness planning.
As lighting professionals, we are in a unique position to catalyze the reclamation of natural darkness through design. Right now, over 80% of the world population is tolerating light polluted skies.5 With the specification of modern lighting controls, a much finer balance can be struck through rapid experimentation to be more intentional with light and to find the most harmony with the natural world.
Yet, technology is not the largest barrier to solving light pollution—awareness is. It is our thinking and implementation that keeps the lights on at night, not the inability to turn them off. We have fallen into tenebrisophobia, a fear of darkness, and this has influenced much of the thinking that created light pollution.
Darkness is intimidating and communities need more support to break away from light addiction. There is a massive need for public education about the importance of natural darkness. These conversations need to happen long before contentious planning board meetings when expedient compromises are made. Therefore, it is imperative that we also lead a more transparent conversation about sustainable lighting practices with the public.
One issue with messaging is that light pollution is a misnomer. When we talk about air pollution or water pollution, both terms refer to what is being polluted. Yet with light pollution, light is the pollutant. Since we already idealize light in metaphor, this term fails to raise alarm. More accurate terms are night pollution and darkness pollution.
Moreover, there is a missed opportunity to harness public lighting as a public messaging tool. Just as city clocks and bells communicate a shared relationship to time, public lighting can be designed to communicate the light story of a community, perhaps blinking at the onset of lighting at civil dusk and the onset of darkness at civil midnight.
By creating a visible forum using public lighting infrastructure, we allow a visual conversation to take place about the needs of both communities and ecosystems. This allows communities to finally make collective decisions about light and darkness plans, rather than defaulting to leaving lights on. When we use design as its own platform to create a forum, a more complex conversation with the public about the state of light pollution and the importance of natural darkness is possible.
Once we have the practical design tools to reclaim natural darkness, tenebrisology becomes a lens to understand and enrich many other aspects of life on Earth and an opportunity to rebuild the human relationship with natural darkness. There is something lost when we only spend time in bright experiences. Waking experiences of natural darkness offer vital periods of rest and reflection that can be an antidote to many ailments of modern life. The study of natural darkness holds great promise to unlock many incredible benefits that could then be reapplied back into design philosophy and practices.
The rising and setting sun is a cardinal truth to rest upon. In modern living, we have removed half of this truth by washing the earth with constant light and never letting the night fall. This is a profound source of disconnection for all living things. With the modern ease of illumination, darkness is a natural resource that must be protected. We must therefore cultivate natural darkness as a deliberate act through the study of tenebrisology and expand the discourse beyond illumination.
References
1 Slade, Jane. “Darkness as a Beacon.” LD+A, Volume 51, no. 6, June 1, 2021.
2 Slade, Jane. “Wield the Power.” LD+A, Volume 51, no. 11, November 1, 2021.
3 Slade, Jane. “Subtle Gestures.” LD+A, Volume 52, no. 6, June 1, 2022.
4 Slade, Jane. “Darkness as a Beacon.” LD+A, Volume 51, no. 6, June 1, 2021.
5 Falchi, Fabio, et al. “The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness.” Science Advances, vol. 2, no. 6, 2016, doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600377.