Editorial: Research on lighting design

The papers in this issue of Lighting Research and Technology have a common theme: research which supports a new approach to interior lighting design. This is led by the work of Kit Cuttle. In many articles, he has promoted considerations in lighting design which extend beyond horizontal illuminance towards ambient illuminance and perceived adequacy of illumination – in other words, a more holistic appraisal of the lit environment. The first paper in this issue, from Cuttle, is a discussion about implementation of his Lighting Design Objectives (LiDOs) procedure into lighting design practice. This is Cuttle’s fifth paper on LiDOs. He suggests it is his final paper on the subject, and hence to extend the discussion, we invited comments about Cuttle’s ideas from three people representing differing interests in lighting design – Kevin Mansfield, Kevan Shaw and Peter Thorns. Such discussions allow the contributors to raise suggestions and questions without the censorship of peer review. Previously, invited discussions accompanied all papers published in Lighting Research and Technology: after having been omitted in recent years, we intend to recruit discussions for suitable papers in future issues. Readers are also able to submit items of correspondence if they wish to comment on published papers; we welcome such contributions and hope to receive more of these in the future. The final paper in this issue is a discussion from Peter Boyce, Howard Brandston and Kit Cuttle about the distinction between design standards and design guidance and their roles in the elimination of bad lighting and the promotion of good lighting. In-between, there are four papers from other authors on the topic of spatial assessments of lighting: Durante and Kelly report a study investigating the relationship between Mean Room Surface Exitance (MRSE) and subjective evaluations of lighting; Zhang et al. then discuss a practical method for field measurement of MRSE; and in two papers, Li and Cai discuss lighting measurement over a 360° field of view. Together these four papers explore some of the practicalities of using Cuttle’s holistic approach – covering issues such as the suitability of MSRE as a metric for assessing the perceived adequacy of illumination as well as possible measurement approaches for quantifying illumination in a three-dimensional space – and highlight where further research is needed. Such questions are important if lighting design and implementation is to fulfil Cuttle’s ultimate goal: indoor lighting that achieves clearly defined and well-specified perceptual responses. And that’s something we should all welcome, not just in terms of improved lighting quality, but also since it will help ensure the energy consumed is used to its fullest benefit. Steve Fotios Editor-in-Chief