Human Centric Lighting

About this course.

Human centric lighting (HCL) is an approach to lighting design that takes account of the effects light has on people's health, wellbeing and performance — biological and psychological effects — as well as the traditional visual goal of letting people see their tasks clearly and safely. In short, conventional lighting design asks "can people see well enough?" while HCL adds "and how does this light affect the people under it?" The underlying insight is that light is not only something we see with; it is also a signal the body uses to regulate itself, and a factor in how alert, comfortable and positive we feel in a space.

To understand why this matters, it helps to separate the different ways light acts on us. The first and most familiar is the visual pathway: light enters the eye, forms images, and lets us perceive detail, colour, contrast and movement. Good visual lighting is the foundation of any lighting scheme — providing enough light for the task, controlling glare, rendering colours faithfully, and avoiding harsh contrasts. None of this is displaced by HCL; it remains essential, and HCL builds on top of it rather than replacing it.