Midterm seminar at the PhD programme in Person, Health and Society for the PhD candidate Are Røysamb

Abstract

With a background in industrial design and a master's degree in urbanism, Are Røysamb has spent much of his career at the intersection of aesthetics, function, and the built environment. As a former head of the architectural lighting design program at USN, he developed a strong interest in how lighting shapes our experience of night-urban space and place, not just technically, but perceptually and emotionally. His doctoral research builds on this foundation. Lighting is widely recognized as important for perceived safety, yet the perceptual mechanisms linking the two remain poorly understood. The project investigates this through three interconnected studies. In the first, four different lighting strategies were tested across urban scenes, from conventional street lighting to object-oriented and randomly distributed configurations, with results showing that how light is distributed matters significantly, not just how much of it there is. The subsequent studies dig deeper: What visual information does lighting make available to us? And where do our eyes go when we navigate a lit or poorly lit street at night? Using image analysis and eye-tracking, the aim is to map the perceptual and attentional pathways that connect lighting design to feelings of safety. The broader goal is a framework that can inform evidence-based lighting design, moving beyond lux levels and energy efficiency toward a richer understanding of how people experience illuminated urban space, and how light can transform space into place.

Participants

• External evaluator: Associate professor Daniel Koch, Kungliga Teksniska Högskolen, Sweden
• Internal evaluator: Professor Helle Falkenberg, USN
• Main supervisor: Associate Professor Ellen Svarverud, USN
• Co-supervisor: Professor Femke Beute, USN
• Seminar leader: Professor Ann-Chatrin Linqvist Leonardsen, USN