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Date of Issue: January 16, 2023・Activity 1 / City Night Survey : Koyasan（2022.10.01-03）・Activity 2 / Online activities City Night Survey : Koyasan 2022.10.01-10.03 Shunichi Ikeda + Genki Watanabe Koyasan (Wakayama Prefecture), a sacred site of Japanese Buddhism with a history of 1,200 years, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004 and again in 2016, and is one of the world’s most renowned religious cities. It is also a popular tourist destination, attracting many international visitors prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the distinctive light environment created by the numerous temples and shrines, as well as through the experience of staying at temple lodgings (shukubō), we conducted an investigation into this extraordinary lighting culture from the perspective of the Lighting Detectives. Koyasan is a town situated in a mountain basin at an altitude of 800 meters, surrounded by peaks of around 1,000 meters in northern Wakayama Prefecture. It was founded about 1,200 years ago, in the early Heian period, by the Buddhist monk Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai) as a sacred site of Japanese Buddhism, with Danjō Garan serving as the central temple complex of this religious city.Originally, the entire area of Koyasan was considered part of the grounds of Kongōbu-ji Temple.For us, this was the first time to focus on a religious city in an urban lighting survey. We wanted to examine what the nightscape of this temple town looks like and how the lighting culture of Japan and…

DateDecember: 6th, 2002 Program: Symposium Venue: Tokyo Design Center Theme of Transnational Tanteidan Forum 2002 in TOKYO was “Regional Lighting Environment.” Various regions around the world have nurtured characteristic cultures of light. The globalization of information and industries, however, has been standardizing lighting technologies, which has caused the loss of unique lighting cultures created through individual ethnic culture, climate, history, religion, and social conditions. It is interesting to comparatively study people’s living environments with the focus on “regional light.” Through discussing similarities and differences in cultures, we may contribute to the preservation of characteristics in regional lighting cultures and create new cultures of light. Lighting Detectives always researches and studies the current lighting environment of a place. Light is “collected,” categorizing lights into four groups: urban lighting, architectural lighting, residential lighting, and lighting of special events and celebrations. The current situations are researched and reported. We seek significance in lighting through comparing and analyzing the lighting environments.

Theme:　Light art and Lighting design Interviewer:　Blanche Lam Blanche：LPA is a lighting design firm. The works mainly focuses on design rather than art. What do you think about design and art? Mende： Good question! But I’d like to ask you before my correct answer, Blanche. Blanche：I studied both art and design before. Art could be explained through personal emotion or convey the message to visitor/ audience. Each artwork has its own story. For design, depends on user or purpose or different situation to improve and change. How about you, what do you think about art or artist? Mende： Artist is a great career. I like art but I decided not to be an artist. Artists are more isolated spiritually. Recently, there are many people saying that designers should be much closer to artist and artist might learn many things from designer. But I don’t think so. We should be inspired by each other. However, artist doesn’t need to think about the neighborhood or others happiness. Just express their feeling or passion. But the designer always think somebody else happiness. Blanche： How about “lighting art”? Mende：I’m not familiar with this word “lighting art”, usually I would say light art. I know James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson, great artist who manipulate light as material. You cannot forget those two artists. I respect their works very much. Olafur Eliasson had an exhibition in London that is huge artificial sunlight. They cannot be compared with…

Singapore has been aiming for a nightscape that catches the viewer wondering, “Is this Asia or western Europe?” In this city of perpetual summer, lighting and air conditioning are necessities to be a modern city. Singapore’s intentions are clear as it aims to create its unique urban nightscape. Looking towards Victoria Harbor from the Millennium Tower at the clean, beautiful cityscape of this modern Asian city. Development along the riverside is progressing. Color lighting along Boat Quay creates a lively atmosphere at night as the lights amplify the refections and movement on the water. The facade of restaurants along Chjmes. This vertical plane of light creates a luminous street.

The Lighting Environment of a Cultural Hub 2022.11.25 ＆ 26　　Naoko Oguchi, Shinichi Sakaguchi, Ryuji Hatta, Tomoya Furukawa, Azumi Okubo, Mutsuo Honma For the first time in three years since 2019, we held a night walk survey where everyone gathered in one location.Under the theme of “Lighting Environments in Cultural Hubs,” we explored two cities: Shimokitazawa in the Kanto region, where a series of exciting new developments have recently been completed, and Kobe in the Kansai region, known for its stylish urban atmosphere. Before the arrival of full-fledged winter, we conducted our first large-group night walk survey in about three years. The theme was “Lighting Environments in Cultural Hubs,” held in two locations: Shimokitazawa in eastern Japan and Kobe in the west.In Shimokitazawa, participants were divided into four groups. Two started from Odakyu Line’s Setagaya-Daita Station and the other two from Higashi-Kitazawa Station, each heading toward Shimokitazawa Station on foot.In Kobe, the walk began after taking in the nightscape from the summit of Mt. Rokko. ■Shimokitazawa – Group 1 Group 1 walked the route from Setagaya-Daita Station to Shimokitazawa Station. The path from Daita Station to the onsen ryokan “Yuen Bettei” was composed of modest stand lights and uplights on the trees, creating a lighting environment that felt calm and atmospheric. While the pole lights were somewhat glaring, their low color temperature provided a unified tone that made the glare less bothersome. Considering safety, the overall brightness felt appropriate, and the…