A range of factors, from evolving technology to resident quality of life, is driving updated lighting strategies for senior living environments. “Our world is changing, and our technology is changing with it,” says Matt Ebejer, principal at Mazzetti. “Our lighting is getting smarter.”
Here, Ebejer and his Mazzetti colleagues Michael Martin, senior lighting designer, and Lauren Schwade, associate and senior lighting designer, discuss these changes and important considerations to make when addressing lighting on your next senior living project.
Environments for Aging: What’s the biggest misconception that you see about lighting for senior living communities?
Lauren Schwade: The biggest misconception is that quality lighting design is not affordable. You often see the same common lighting designs that would be in a typical apartment, residence, or hotel applied to these environments. But senior living communities need more than higher illumination levels geared toward the aging eye. With LED lighting costs coming in lower and lower by the day, lighting designers have more options than ever to create a quality lighting design approach that can support the needs of older adults.
What design considerations do you need to make when designing for an aging population?
Michael Martin: Beyond higher illumination levels, designers must also consider contrast, source glare, and horizontal and vertical illumination to provide visual comfort for those with vision issues such as macular degeneration, positional vertigo, or other balance issues who rely on visual cues to help with orientation. For example, lighting details and luminaire design should be simplified to reduce luminance contrast within the visual field. Details such as coves and architectural feature highlighting, which create line-of-light and halo effects, should be softened to be a gradual but distinct gradient.
Additionally, wall sconces, chandeliers, and pendants should have diffuse lensing or shades so that point sources, like clear incandescent filament lamps and LED diodes, are not directly visible. Instead of having a high lumen-output decorative luminaire in the center of the ceiling as the only illumination source, incorporate a deep ceiling cove to provide diffuse illumination across the ceiling and provide vertical illumination on the walls with wall washers, art lighting, and decorative sconces. This provides a visually comfortable space so that individuals can safely navigate it with their heads level and their eyes forward, without having to look away from bright sources. Additional recessed accent lighting can then be provided at task locations rather than providing high horizontal illumination for an entire space.
What new approaches to lighting design are you seeing applied to senior living spaces?
Schwade: Low-wattage LED luminaires with higher color rendering index levels of 90 and above are becoming more common. Also, LED luminaires are being used everywhere on a project instead of only specialty areas, with extra attention being given to source color temperature. Color tuning and dim-to-warm LED strategies are mimicking incandescent designs of the past in a new way with controls that change with time of day and color temperature.
What’s driving these changes?
Matt Ebejer: Technological advancements with improved energy efficiency, quality of life of residents, marketability of sustainability and energy conserving projects, and lifecycle costs are some of the drivers. Many state utility companies offer grants for energy-saving ideas, including covering design costs and helping pay for equipment.
Supporting residents’ circadian rhythms is important. What lighting strategies can be used to help support this?
Schwade: You don’t have to have a full tunable lighting approach, which controls a light source’s color temperature output, to help balance a person’s circadian rhythm. Using warm white lighting in the evening to balance hormone levels can be enough when there’s daytime natural daylight exposure for the resident. Communal spaces that don’t have a lot of daylight exposure or that are used for alert daytime activities could benefit from color tuning based on the time of day, to keep residents on a normal day/night cycle. Warm lighting with amber tones for nighttime lighting can also help with sundowning.
What’s on your radar for the next breakthrough in lighting design?
Martin: Luminaire designs that include nightlights for the residents, in and out of the resident room. Also, more affordable lighting controls that will allow for voice-activated personal assistant integration and better dimming strategies will create opportunities for layers of light or “scenes” that add to the overall aesthetic appeal of an environment. Small-impact LED sources are key to helping designers address surface brightness and balancing lighting without having glaring light sources. Lighting should be part of the overall architectural approach and is just as important.
