Archinect - Light - As we See it!

The REFINED light

2015-06-22T10:10:19-04:00

Of the five senses sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, which provides the most information to the brain?

For obvious reasons, I thought it is sight, but it turns out that there is a huge area reserved in the brain for the sense of touch. Vision, also occupies a large portion of the brain, by the way.

Having watched "The biology of belief" by Bruce Lipton, I knew that our skin is the most intelligent part of our body and from its 3 layers of ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm, as a single cell, all our skin, nervous system, skeleton, circulatory system, brain, eyes, heart, liver, kidney etc are manufactured. Every nutrient necessary for the development of the cell is allowed inside the cell and foreign agents are kept outside the cell by the intelligence of cell membrane (membrain, as one doctor puts it).

So what about the skin of the grown up adult? Does it provide any kind of nutrition? I think it provides the wholesome nutrition from the Sun. With a huge surface area, our skin has be...

Light Hazard Labels

2015-06-15T12:48:13-04:00

First attempt by a lighting manufacturer to warn customers about the wrong light at the wrong time and its biological disruptions. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/09/health/light-bulb-warning

The article says thus "The packing on every one of their products will carry a "Notice" that "exposure to certain electric lights may cause biological effects, some potentially disruptive." Underneath the message is a website that will provide education material that spells out the potential negative health effects of artificial light."

The website features articles about the impact of light on circadian rhythms and sleep.

"Scientists have talked about this for years, but now a lighting company is about to point that out to every single one of its customers. And they are doing it voluntarily. What's the catch?" asks the article.

This seems to be an oversimplification of the issue.

We have around 120 million rods and 6 million cones in the retina. Cones are densely packed in the center area called the...

Me? Chicken? No way!

2015-06-10T04:01:15-04:00

A vivid example of light and dark cycle manipulation to improve or deteriorate health.

There was a time, when chicken used to roam around freely in the farms, exposed to natural sunlight and darkness, natural food and water consumption regulated by the light and dark cycles of nature. They were colorful, healthy and agile.

Genetic selection created a single color broiler chicken, which were exposed to continuous light exposure for 24 hours. Increased duration of light meant, increased consumption of feed, beyond their biological day, which meant increased weight and improved profits. Soon, the producers realized that it is not so profitable. The chicken grew muscles and mass faster but had underdeveloped heart, lungs, skeletal system and circulatory systems.

Continuous exposure to lighting resulted in increased fat deposition, metabolic diseases, skeletal, circulatory and immune system disorders like sudden death syndrome, ascites (water belly), leg problems, increased stress levels a...

Go New York!

2015-06-05T12:14:00-04:00

Recently I came across a news article about plans in New York city to switch off lights at night (LAN). http://luxreview.com/article/2015/05/new-york-mulls-nighttime-lighting-ban-for-40-000-office-buildings. It was heartening to read that article, but the reasoning for this move is an absurd one. For saving energy! If that is the case, it will not be long when some authority will talk about switching off lights even in daytime.

The real reason for switching off lights at night should be that it is beneficial to our health and that of our children. What we do not realize is the fact that light is an electromagnetic radiation from the sun.

Every photon of light that reaches our eye was born in the core of the sun and 'cooked' in the sun's core for millions of years before escaping the sun's surface. Though it takes only 8 minutes for every photon of light to travel from the sun's surface to earth, it takes millions of years for these photons to travel from the core to the surface. So ev...

LIGHT obstruction by trees

2015-05-22T10:26:00-04:00

Road lighting is so much in favor using streetlights instead of post tops. Even if the road width is less, traffic flow is minimal or it is a private road, still street lighting fixtures are used without a second thought.

While street lighting is indispensable for roads with high speed traffic and wide roads, there are many instances where post top lighting could be sufficient to achieve the required lighting levels.

Street lights even in small residential roads are quite common. This creates light trespass into residential buildings affecting the sleep quality of residents and eventually their health in the long term.

Another point is that the same lighting levels are specified regardless of it being a highway or secondary road or private road. There are different lighting levels recommended for different road types depending on the traffic density, speed and diversity of road users.

And it becomes even worse, when street lights are used to illuminate roads completely covered with tre...

Chapter 3 - Light and Dark Cycle

2015-02-18T23:02:44-05:00

(Excerpts of Chapter 3 from "Healthy Lighting of your Homes - Guiding principles to health efficient lighting of homes". The book is available for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKSLSK4)

Natural day light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum of the sun. EM spectrum is the energy behind our modern day life style. Everything from radio, television, mobile phones, laptops, internet to oven, x-ray, and infrared cameras work on EM spectrum. EM radiation is available naturally from sunlight or artificially created by exciting atoms. Non ionizing radiation are low energy radiation which does not affect the atom’s structure. This extends from the radio waves to the visible light part of the spectrum. Micro waves are harmful to human beings even though, they are of low energy. Ionizing radiation are high energy radiation which can affect an atom’s structure. This extends from the ultraviolet to the gamma waves part of the spectrum. Controlled exposure to some of these radiations a...

Chapter 2 - Natural Clocks

2015-02-18T02:01:42-05:00

(Full preview of Chapter 2 from "Healthy Lighting of your Homes - Guiding principles to health efficient lighting of homes". The book is available for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKSLSK4)

The Universe works with the precision of a clock. Planets revolve around the Sun at precise speeds. Satellites of planets revolve around their planets at precise speeds. The moon rotates around our planet earth at precise speeds. Many of these planets also spin around their own axis.

Fig 2.1 Atomic universe clocks

All these gravitational rotations create natural cycles which ensure balance and regulate earth and its atmosphere. These rotations are so accurate, that there is only a 2 millisecond slowing down, in 100 years. The most accurate clock in our world is not a manmade clock with springs and gears but a natural clock. The accuracy of the oscillations in a caesium atom (9,192,631,770 cycles per second) is harnessed to create atomic clocks, which is the master clock of our world. This ...

Chapter 1 - A brief history of you!

2015-02-16T23:18:47-05:00

(Full preview of Chapter 1 from "Healthy Lighting of your Homes - Guiding principles to health efficient lighting of homes". The book is available for purchase athttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKSLSK4)

“ We are all connected ;

To each other biologically,

To the earth, chemically,

To the rest of the Universe, atomically”

– Neil De Grasse Tyson.

Life on earth is said to have started around 3.8 billion of years ago. Considering that earth itself came into being, around 4.6 billion years ago, we can say that “WE” have been around since the beginning of the world.

“WE” might not have been in this same shape and form that we call as humans, but many ingredients of us like, atoms, molecules, amino acids, nucleotides, RNA, DNA and proteins have been around for millions of years. They have been in the form of single cells, multiple cells and as complex cellular structures, later.

99% of our body is composed of Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon atoms. They combine together to form molecules, molecules combi...

Healthy Lighting of your Homes

2015-02-16T01:12:34-05:00

Inappropriate lighting and inappropriate darkness at inappropriate times is wreaking havoc on our health everyday but at an imperceptible pace and intensity at a subconscious level.

Compared to the intensities of light and darkness exposure over millions of years, our technological advances and modern lifestyle have effectively turned our days into night and our nights into day. This is more true in our homes, as we spend the key triggering points of this cycle at our homes.

Our biological responses are misfiring because of these perpetual inaccurate cues, resulting in the manifestation of many lifestyle diseases like sleeping disorders, obesity, diabetes, ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), ASD ( Autism Spectrum disorder), depression, stress etc. either directly or indirectly. Appropriate light and dark cycle cues have been found to positively impact our alertness, cognition, concentration, learning, memory, productivity, willpower, moods, emotions and behaviors.

This ...

LIGHT the VOLUMES!

2014-11-10T05:59:36-05:00

In this post, i will make an attempt to capture the evolution of lighting schemes from room based lighting to the contemporary, task based and 'non-visual' aspects of lighting schemes.

While, the horizontal lighting levels are still the primary consideration, impact of light on our perceptions and biological functions, as a stimulus, has forced us to look at additional factors, like, modelling, mean cylindrical illuminance, color temperatures, light color, directional aspects of light etc. When all these factors are in an optimum balance, productivity and motivational levels of occupants have improved.

Let us consider a hypothetical case of a room of 15mx15mx2.8m with a reflectance factor of 0.7,0.5 and 0.2 for Ceiling, Walls and floor respectively . Obviously, there would be columns, windows, doors etc which would impact the lighting scheme. But for simplicity and comparison, let us consider this example.

Those days (90s), various types of metal reflectors were used to push light as...

Shadows - THE highLIGHT!

2014-11-01T03:57:58-04:00

"The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow." - LEONARDO DA VINCI

Light and shadow have been mutual overtones to each other from the beginning. Depending on the context and application, one gets importance over the other. There is nothing called shadow free lighting but only shadowLESS lighting.

An open plan office or airport pre-check in area full of shadows and a luxury showroom or restaurant which is uniformly lit are examples of misplaced priorities between light and shadow.

Quality, position and orientation of shadow is a function of light intensity, direction and distance. We have seen the impact of shadows on our perception in my blog " Can we see LIGHT?"

This is the typical context of shadow that we are used to but let us widen the context of shadow with the help of the de...

How do we FEEL light?

2014-10-18T09:17:09-04:00

Have you ever wondered how the sunflower is able to follow the sun?

Probably you know that they exhibit a property called heliotropism or solar tracking, commonly found in many plants. It is essential for maximum photosynthesis. But why are the sunflowers not facing the setting sun in the picture below?

Did you know that only the budding and immature flowers follow the sun from the east to west?

The mature flowers seem to have an internal circadian clock which keeps them facing east, even before sun rise and stay facing east for the rest of the day! Beyond a certain stage of development, facing the morning sun, even for a shorter duration seems to be sufficient, but critical, for photosynthesis.

(True for us too! - Did you get your dose of morning sun today? Exposure to the morning sun for 15 minutes a day, i believe, is the simplest health secret!)

Sunflowers do not even have an eye or a brain!

The intelligence, is in the cell level. Every part of every living organism has these intelli...

Can we see LIGHT?

2014-10-06T01:21:00-04:00

In 2001, I attended a training course conducted by Dr. Warren Julian, from University of Sydney, which created a new understanding of lighting. Me and my friend became ardent fans of the professor and peppered him with questions after questions and did not even let him eat peacefully during the breaks. But, he was so kind and nice that he tolerated us.

I had completed 3 years in Philips in 2001 and was part of a team which did complete street lighting illumination of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and architectural and landscape illumination of Ramoji rao film city, Hyderabad. They were such prestigious and high value projects that this training program was supposed to be a reward and only two of us were sent for this course from Philips. My friend was from the design department and I was from the sales department.

I thought I had learnt everything there is, in lighting, to learn, in those 3 years. While I had learnt the subject by rote from the "the lighting bible" (Ph...