The Midwifery Feel of Light

The book “Lighting Design in Shared Public Spaces” brings a new perspective to lighting design with chapters arguing for an approach that addresses how lighting is experienced, understood and valued by people. One of the book’s chapters is “The Midwifery Feel of Light” by Stine Louring Nielsen, project developer at Universal Design Hub.

By focusing on how lighting is improvised, arranged, avoided and composed in relation to the people and things it acts upon, the book advances understandings of lighting design by showing how improved experiences of the built environment can result from more sensitive and context-specific illumination.

The chapter “The Midwifery Feel of Light” examines the discrepancy between the regulatory requirements and designerly intentions of conventional and chromatic lighting in healthcare environments and their actual application of lighting during the process of delivery.

The chapter seeks to expand the understanding of the human body as felt and feeling within the context of lit space. It is based on a case study of midwives working in sensory delivery rooms in Denmark.

In the case, the midwives practised lighting in conventional and sensory delivery rooms using their own sensory awareness and attention towards the felt body. Nielsen discusses how this sensory awareness and attention emphasises lighting as an aesthetic design element with the potential to affect the human body in multiple ways within and beyond current regulatory requirements and designerly intentions of lighting in healthcare environments.

You can find the book here: Lighting Design in Shared Public Spaces – 1st Edition – Shanti Sumart (routledge.com)