Following the success of the recent workshop on the Whitecross Estate in Islington, Configuring Light’s Urban Lightscapes / Social Nightscapes project is to be documented in a short film and an exhibition taking place at the LSE in February 2015.
Don Slater, co-founder of the Configuring Light programme said:
“Our Urban Lightscapes workshop on the Whitecross estate in Islington was exciting, exhausting and a great success for everyone involved. It showed that design based on social research and user interaction is the way forward in public lighting design – thanks to all our 25 participants, collaborators and the Whitecross residents who got behind the project and are now excited about light. A great result!”
Workshop participant Satu Streatfield, Design Associate at Speirs and Major said:
“It was an intensive, but very enjoyable workshop. You can carry out thorough historical and physical analysis of a site’s context, but until you’ve spoken to the people that live, work, pass through, or care for a place you’ll only paint half a picture. From school children walking home with their parents, city workers spilling over from Whitecross Street market, to families of three generations living on the estate – everybody had an interesting story to tell and something to contribute to our thinking.”
Whitecross resident Marianne Connolly said:
“The whole experience was brought to us by enthusiastic, energetic people with a passion for good lighting. They took us from the reasonable, normal, standard lighting to something altogether more beautiful. Throwing colour into the blank canvas of buildings and painting them as warm and inviting. It was an experience I was thrilled to be able to share with my daughter, friends and community”.