“Rethinking Future City Night Walk” 2020.08.28　東悟子 The Lighting Detectives’ main activities revolve around fieldwork. During this salon, we split into groups to discuss what kinds of night walk surveys are possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what we should be observing now.Our third salon held online Each team discussed potential areas for the night walk survey. The Nagoya team proposed a streetlight investigation Since the end of March, we’ve been working with the night walk survey planning committee, SQUAD, to explore what kind of activities the Detectives can pursue even under pandemic restrictions.Various ideas were proposed, such as solo night walks, video streams of night walks by Chief Mende, virtual night walks, and even group YouTube watch sessions. In May, we conducted an experiment where each member investigated lighting within a 100-meter radius of their home and shared their findings online. This project turned out to be meaningful, as it revealed both positive aspects and problem areas in each of our residential neighborhoods. However, since the Lighting Detectives have long focused on gathering for fieldwork as a core activity, we wanted to explore new possibilities. With that in mind, we invited members to submit ideas under the theme “Reimagining Future Night Walk Surveys.” Specifically, we asked what kind of night walk surveys they’d like to try. Based on similarities in proposed themes and locations, members were grouped into three teams: Each group was given 40 minutes to discuss and develop…

Global Nightscape survey in Melbourne 2014.11.11-11.15　　Misuzu Nakamura+Haruka Sakoda　 For 4 years running, Melbourne has been chosen as the best place in the world to live. City planning has successfully focused on public space to build one of the world’s leading and charming cities. The cityscape is harmonious balance of old and new buildings. Main avenues lined with trees and lampposts are beautifully maintained, along with smaller alleyways, and even the waterfront along the river flowing through the middle of the city is carefully planned. We surveyed the Melbourne nightscape in search of the secret to its coziness. We can clearly feel the difference of lighting atmosphere between CBD area which is occupied with blacked-out buildings and surrounding local area which is covered by twinkling warm-colored street lights, when we look down from “Eureka Sky Deck”. The lighting plan of the city seems to have intent to differentiate business districts and cozy alleyways, using different color temperature as public lights. The waterfront area was well-maintained with designed pole lights and façade lighting from the surroundings, but some of tree lightings were by glaring spotlights. Many people were enjoying their walk along the river. We found a lot of “catenary downlights” in the city. Instead of pole lighting, catenaries covered large squares, wide intersections and narrow pathway between the building. When the night falls, the downlights looked like a starry sky. As we can see that so many people were gathering at…

Date: September 19th, 2008 Program: City tour, Lecture, Workshop, City Survey, Exhibition, Symposium Venue: B.C. Usce 7th Annual Transnational Tanteidan Forum in Belgrade Once a year the Lighting Detectives hold their annual Transnational Tanteidan Forum, this year being the 7th year. Using the Lighting Detective network that has spread throughout the world, members from different countries wanted the opportunity to discuss different lighting cultures and so the first Forum was held in Tokyo in 2002. From there it was been hosted by Stockholm, Hamburg, New York City, Singapore, and Copenhagen. This year the forum was hosted by Belgrade, Serbia, the former capital of Yugoslavia. This is the hometown of Transnational Tanteidan core member and artist, Alexandria, currently living in Stockholm, who insisted on hosting this year’s form in the growing capital. The forum was held in conjunction with a local event “Belgrade of Light,” receiving extensive PR time from local TV stations, newspapers, and magazines. Searching for Heroes and Villains of Light! Regarded as a crash course to the Lighting Detective, “Searching for Heroes and Villains,” is an easy introduction to the activities of the Lighting Detectives. In conjunction with the 2008 forum we also held a Heroes and Villains Workshop, with about 50 students in attendance from Stockholm, Belgrade, and Tokyo. This activity is very simple. Groups of students go out into the city at night, look for examples of good lighting, heroes, and bad lighting, villains. Afterwards, the…

Bangkok is a center of on-going development in Southeast Asia. Solemn Buddhism culture and lively night markets have developed side-by-side to create a modern, but chaotic city full of energy. Amongst the harmonious charm of the old and new along the streets of Bangkok we survived the lighting environment. Open-air restaurants on the top floors of high-rise buildings are very popular nightspots. From the 55 floor the energetic and chaotic atmosphere of the city is absent. Amongst the rows of tall buildings sodium lamps flood the streets with light creating the impression of a sprawling modern city. Street vendors line the sidewalks. Moving deeper into the night market, the booths are covered with various lamps and neon arranged without much thought other than to show off the merchandise. At one booth warm colored lamps were used to showcase warmer tones of accessories and whitish light reflected off the spangled jewelry. An hour’s drive outside of Bangkok is the town of Amphawa, famous for the Amphawa Floating Market. Along the narrow river are many lights that reflect of the surface of the water. The reflections create depth along the Chao Phraya River and a lively buzz along the riverbanks and streets of the town.

UNO LAILighting DesignerTaipei I imagine, when we look back twenty years from now, this period of time will appear as one long pause. Over the past 48 months, I have been in quarantine 10 times for 14 days each, adding up to 140 days — nearly 4 months of my life that have disappeared. Perhaps, though, it is not so much that those days have disappeared; rather, the pause simply occurred and can be examined positively, as a phenomenon. Life leading up to this point had been very busy — so busy that I could sometimes hardly recall what I had just done or what I was doing. The pause, as a force, has slowed the pace so that I can more clearly see what I do and what the next step is. Twenty four hours has often felt like a blink, a swiftly disappearing day… and yet in the long isolation of quarantine, twenty four hours seem like a vast expanse, an endless day during which one can watch time ebb and flow. As I add up these days, they resolve into a long stretch of quiet that has offered space to more fully appreciate where I have been, to reflect on the things that occurred and think about the people who were part of those experiences. Before the outbreak, it would have been nearly impossible for me to remain at the same balcony or by the same window…