What principles should be followed in outdoor environmental lighting design?

What principles should outdoor environment lighting design follow? With the improvement of people's living standards, the time people spend outdoors has extended from day to night, making urban night scene lighting play a very important role. Night scene lighting not only facilitates people's lives and beautifies the urban night sky but also suffers from light pollution due to some unreasonable designs. Therefore, when implementing outdoor environment lighting design, we should follow the following basic principles:

1. First, start from a macro perspective, understand urban planning, commercial streets, residential areas, and the planning of major urban traffic routes: plan the overall night scene lighting in harmony and unity with the entire city, reflecting the city's outline. According to needs, subdivide the entire city's night scene lighting into: major traffic routes, urban streets, commercial areas, squares, building facades, etc., and refine each occasion under the premise of obeying the overall lighting plan.

2. Consider roads, buildings, street scenes, etc., as a unified whole; design urban road lighting together with roadside lighting. Utilize the functions and forms of large streetlights to provide lighting for both the road and the surrounding environment. Emphasize vertical surface illuminance. Generally, do not add too many fixtures solely for roadside greenery; further unify function and form.

Road lighting must first meet traffic safety needs, including two aspects: pedestrian safety and vehicle safety. In addition to requiring a certain level of horizontal illuminance, consider vertical surface illuminance and brightness to meet safety needs and avoid creating contour effects of moving objects that obscure details. Strictly follow CIE (International Commission on Illumination) and IES (Illuminating Engineering Society of North America) standards regarding urban road classification and corresponding lighting requirements. Under this premise, consider the integration of fixture forms with the surrounding environment. Appropriately select fixture shapes based on environmental positioning to achieve harmony.

Improper vertical surface illuminance creates contour effects. Proper vertical surface illuminance allows details to be seen clearly.

The harmonious unity of roads and street scenes.

Regarding building lighting, it should be considered comprehensively from the city's outline, regional positioning, and individual characteristics. The middle part of buildings should not be overly emphasized; mainly utilize ambient light from street scenes or indoor light transmission along with fixtures hidden within buildings for illumination. The unity of fixture shape and function should be based on coordination with the surrounding environment using scientific design and calculations. Avoid installing too many fixtures on building surfaces that would damage their facades. Pay special attention to glare generation, including sky light pollution and user light intrusion.

3. High pole lighting systems for large squares and major traffic hubs:

High pole lighting systems effectively address the limitations of traditional lighting by proposing new lighting solutions that reduce equipment, lower maintenance costs, expand visual range, etc. However, current high pole lighting should be further improved by replacing traditional floodlights with professional high pole lighting fixtures in several aspects:

A. Reduce glare.

B. Achieve sufficient vertical surface illuminance and horizontal illuminance.

C. Control uniformity within a certain range.

D. Stable operation effectively extends the lifespan of the lighting system.

E. Easy maintenance extends maintenance cycles.

4. Classic landscape road lighting:

For roads with a certain historical tradition, lighting fixtures should blend into the surrounding environment while providing sufficient road and ambient lighting in different seasons. When summer arrives, consider that trees and green leaves on both sides of the road may block current fixtures affecting illumination. If possible, change the current lighting method by lowering pole heights and adjusting installation positions: control pole heights between 4 meters to 5 meters positioned between two trees; then install fixtures with glass prism lighting systems using TYPE3 (Type 3 distribution curve) to achieve certain levels of horizontal illuminance, vertical illuminance, and uniformity on the road; also provide corresponding illumination conditions on pedestrian walkways.

Traditional cutoff-type fixtures are affected by greenery while new generation fixtures have improved illumination effects.