As lighting professionals, how well do we understand the urban spaces we're lighting, how they're used, why and by whom? Crucially, do we know who isn't using them and, again, why? Through his research group at the London School of Economics, sociologist Dr Don Slater is working to improve how the industry thinks about 'the social' in lighting, as he explained at LuxLive in November. This is an abridged version of his presentation. I'm a sociologist, not a lighting designer, manufacturer or engineer, or even someone really entitled to speak about light. But I started working on lighting about six years ago, and at that time it was very difficult to find people to talk to who might be interested in what I was doing. And academic colleagues did not get why lighting was so important, complicated or problematic, and therefore worth studying.
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