The workplace is a multifarious environment, even if tasked with a single, essential purpose – to provide workers a space in which to work. Workspaces are more than this by necessity; they need to provide for essential needs, of course, but they also need to be comfortable spaces. Comfortable spaces that inspire productivity. This is no mean feat.
And this is why one of the most important aspects of any work environment, outside of the facilities that enable work to be completed, is lighting. Lighting, conceptually, often goes unnoticed in office environments and office design, even though you and everyone else in that environment experience its effects daily.
As the work environment continues to shift in the aftermath of a hybrid-working revolution, so do considerations about lighting – and about what it can do for the modern office. This is not a piece about dramatic design statements and forward-thinking office aesthetics; this is an exploration of lighting as a catalyst for focus, comfort, and adaptability.
The Link Between Lighting and Attention
Since we most often recognise the impact of lighting when it isn’t there, let’s take that same subtractive approach and apply it to light’s importance in professional environments; that is, the problems that bad lighting can present. With the wrong approach to lighting in any working environment, workers are more likely to suffer from eye strain, poor alertness, and reduced concentration during long working hours. This is widespread but exacerbated by bright computer screens or spaces that do not benefit from natural light.
Conversely, the right approach to work-environment lighting encourages comfort. With a well-supported, well-lit space, workers are better-equipped to be safe, alert and untroubled by the effects of low light on their attention to tasks.
How Spaces Use Light to Guide Behaviour
If bad lighting can have such a deleterious effect on worker comfort, efficacy, and even health, then what does good lighting look like? How can light be utilised positively, for the benefit of staff and for the comfort of the working environment? It’s important to understand the various roles that light fulfils to answer this question.
Ambient lighting is the overhead lighting that supports general visibility, while task lighting is focused on smaller environments to illuminate working spaces. Accent lighting enables the feel of the space to be controlled, adding warmth or softening corners.
LED lights are more commonplace now and remarkable for their adaptability; smart LED lights can be used ambiently and controlled to be brighter or even warmer, depending on the feel of the space. LED strip lights are useful for task-lighting above worktops, especially if installed beneath pre-existing cabinetry; they provide neat and holistic illumination.
Simple Adjustments That Make a Measurable Difference
Lighting isn’t a one-and-done installation, though. It is a work in progress and a highly individual one that depends on the dimensions and attributes of the working space you are working to illuminate. Small changes over time enable you to better orient the space with the needs of its workers, whether it’s more desk lamps and strip lights to defeat darker winter mornings or better accent light placement for a more comfortable reception area.
