Symposium: Urban Lightscapes/ Social Nightscapes

Symposium hosted by Configuring Light in partnership with iGuzzini and LSE HEIF 5 Knowledge Exchange

Visit the project website here.

Symposium: Urban Lightscapes/Social Nightscapes is the finale of a five day workshop on Peabody’s Whitecross estate in Islington, London, that brings together lighting design professionals, architects, planners and social scientists around the topic of social research in lighting design.

Focus of the workshop is the creation of new lighting design interventions to help improve the outdoor spaces on the estate. In this workshop, LSE researchers will support the design teams in their social research to help them better understand the Whitecross estate and its community in order to come up with sensible public lighting ideas. Throughout the workshop, the design teams will engage in a dialogue with the estate’s community to understand their lighting needs and try out different lighting concepts. Configuring Light/Staging the Social is documenting the project in a film and a photo exhibition to be held at the LSE in February 2015 and will be producing a handbook for social research in design which will be freely available at http://socialnightscapes.org/

The final day of the workshop will see these proposals presented in a symposium to an audience consisting of the Whitecross community, Peabody, invited guests and the public. A guest panel, chaired by LSE Cities’ Fran Tonkiss and including renowned lighting master planner Roger Narboni and Brian Quinn, Advisor at Cabe at the Design Council, will comment on the design teams’ presentations and engage the audience in a discussion around social research in design.

Lighting design, architecture and planning professionals from eleven countries have been invited and selected from an open call to participate in the workshop. The workshop will take place from the 13-17 October 2014 on the Whitecross estate and culminates in the symposium on 17 October 2014 at the LSE.

Free and open to the public but booking essential. Click here to book your place.

Note for Whitecross residents: a number of places have been reserved for Whitecross residents so advance booking for residents is not necessary.

The Urban Lightscapes/Social Nightscapes project is hosted by Configuring Light in partnership with the Social Light Movement and Peabody, funded by LSE HEIF5 Knowledge Exchange and with technical sponsorship from iGuzzini.

 

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Profiles

    Roger Narboni

    Roger Narboni is a renowned lighting designer, visual artist and the Director of Concepto Studio, founded in 1987 in Bagneux. As the first lighting designer in France, he coined the term ‘concepteur lumiere’. He is considered to be a master of urban lighting, and is the author of several books on the subject.

    Brian Quinn

    Brian Quinn is an Advisor at Cabe at the Design Council. His work looks at housing design quality, giving advice and managing design led projects for neighbourhood plans, new development and estate regeneration. He managed Cabe’s input into the relaunch of Building for Life 12 – the most widely used housing design tool and has written a number of Cabe publications including “This way to residential streets”. Brian has been Cabe’s spokesperson on this since 2009 on crime prevention and design – As part of this he managed a major research project funded by the Home Office to assess the crime issues associated with recently built housing schemes. Prior to working for Cabe at the Design Council, Brian worked as an urban designer for Alan Baxter and Associates and the Richard Coleman Consultancy. He has an MA in Urban Design from the University of Westminster and a BA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Oxford.

    Fran Tonkiss

    Fran Tonkiss is Professor of Sociology, and Deputy Head of Department. Her research and teaching is in the fields of urban and economic sociology. Her research interests focus on urban inequalities, urban development and design, social and spatial divisions, and the socio-economic organisation of urban space.  Publications in these fields include Cities by Design: the social life of urban form (Polity, 2013), Space, the City and Social Theory (Polity, 2005), and Contemporary Economic Sociology: Globalisation, Production, Inequality (Routledge, 2006). She is currently managing editor of Economy and Society; she was previously an editor of the British Journal of Sociology, and remains a member of the editorial board.

    Roger Narboni

    Roger Narboni is a renowned lighting designer, visual artist and the Director of Concepto Studio, founded in 1987 in Bagneux. As the first lighting designer in France, he coined the term ‘concepteur lumiere’. He is considered to be a master of urban lighting, and is the author of several books on the subject.

    Brian Quinn

    Brian Quinn is an Advisor at Cabe at the Design Council. His work looks at housing design quality, giving advice and managing design led projects for neighbourhood plans, new development and estate regeneration. He managed Cabe’s input into the relaunch of Building for Life 12 – the most widely used housing design tool and has written a number of Cabe publications including “This way to residential streets”. Brian has been Cabe’s spokesperson on this since 2009 on crime prevention and design – As part of this he managed a major research project funded by the Home Office to assess the crime issues associated with recently built housing schemes. Prior to working for Cabe at the Design Council, Brian worked as an urban designer for Alan Baxter and Associates and the Richard Coleman Consultancy. He has an MA in Urban Design from the University of Westminster and a BA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Oxford.

    Fran Tonkiss

    Fran Tonkiss is Professor of Sociology, and Deputy Head of Department. Her research and teaching is in the fields of urban and economic sociology. Her research interests focus on urban inequalities, urban development and design, social and spatial divisions, and the socio-economic organisation of urban space.  Publications in these fields include Cities by Design: the social life of urban form (Polity, 2013), Space, the City and Social Theory (Polity, 2005), and Contemporary Economic Sociology: Globalisation, Production, Inequality (Routledge, 2006). She is currently managing editor of Economy and Society; she was previously an editor of the British Journal of Sociology, and remains a member of the editorial board.