Overview

Darkness, Design, and Biodiversity examines the overlooked crisis of light pollution, advocating for the protection of our planet’s natural night. It offers a critical examination of how modern lighting practices harm biodiversity and introduces innovative solutions for creating protective darkness. Through three core paradigms, the book addresses the causes and solutions of light pollution, presents technical outdoor lighting strategies, and explores the design of nocturnal spaces. Aimed at a broad audience, from students across various disciplines to laypeople and professionals, it serves as both an informative resource and a call to action. By combining insights from ecology, architecture, engineering, and more, this concise work encourages readers to contribute to preserving nature’s diversity by rethinking our approach to artificial lighting and darkness.

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9780888397867

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Reviews

This book by Dr. Julle Oksanen is about light, life and architecture. The author is an internationally known lighting and nocturnal architecture professional in shadow-rich darkness design. He has extensively studied the sources of light pollution in outdoor environments and its effects on biodiversity from a multidisciplinary perspective. In this meticulously researched work, he defines the basics and provides us with expert information on how to make artificial lighting sustainably responsible in man-made environments all over the world. Remarkably comprehensive in theory and practice, we learn how to remove light pollution with his new nocturnal design guidelines. This book is an excellent invaluable resource and reference for anyone interested in sustainable architecture, the versatile sources of global illumination, and its impact on Earth's biodiversity. Experts in architecture, landscape architecture, developers, engineers and many environmental researchers will find the content to be essential in their studies and practices regarding artificial light. Recommendations for further research and interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration are among the most important content in this work. This useful book is a contribution that will improve our world, our human part of it particularly, and all other life affected by it. Please read and learn, and then act to join the author and other like-minded citizens in preserving, improving, and protecting this one planet upon which all life depends. Daniel Klem, Jr., Ph.D., D.Sc. Professor of Ornithology and Conservation Biology, Muhlenberg College USA

Author Information

Julle Oksanen and architect Professor Dr. Hannu Tikka are part of Group X, a focus group at the Department of Architecture at Aalto University. They form a “Light & Space Academy,” part of the Finnish Mobile University, arranging traveling educational activities in the USA, Asia and Europe. Julle Oksanen graduated with a PhD from the Department of Architecture, Aalto University. He researches the relationship between light pollution, Darkness Design, architecture and biodiversity. Before his work in Darkness Design, he spent more than 30 years as a lighting and fixture designer, and his company, Julle Oksanen Lighting Design Ltd., has carried out diverse projects that included a cathedral, amphitheater, airport, city centers, office buildings, etc., in the United States, Europe and Asia. He has also designed luminaires for international manufacturers, both custom and for standard production. In addition to his PhD from Aalto University, he has a Master of Science degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design. He is also a Professional Engineer (electricity) as a graduate of Helsinki Technical College. He has held visiting professorships and other academic positions at universities in London, New York, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Oregon, Tennessee and Norway. He has lectured at important Lightfairs in New York and Las Vegas and in over 20 universities around the world. His dissertation “Design Concepts in Architectural Outdoor Lighting Design, Based on Metaphors as a Heuristic Tool” has been honored as the best final thesis in the field.

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