Rogier van der Heide: Why light needs darkness

http://www.ted.com Lighting architect Rogier van der Heide offers a beautiful new way to look at the world -- by paying attention to light (and to darkness). Examples from classic buildings illustrate a deeply thought-out vision of the play of light around us.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

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Science & Technology

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[earthfx]

Just finishing watching a talk with Mark Bezos and then came upon this one. It is one hell of a contrast.

[fashizzle]

nice try xehanort

[dieuhien08]

Interesting from a light pollution perspective...

[andreeaweed]

wow this is very very grate design ...grate

[Cruzzzzz1988]

@earthfx

which one is better?

[PindaLollie]

Beautiful thought. Always fun to hear Dutch people doing their best English. And I know, because I'm one of them (;

[DeviantincTV]

As a lighting designer I love this talk! We do too many jobs where there are 'uniformity' requirements - good lighting works with contrast! How can you make a great looking train station when you're constrained to 0.7unif over a concourse?!

BTW - the very latest LEDs are actually much bigger and have external phosphor (it makes them more efficient and last longer due to over-heating less)....

[derekxnl]

I remember the lighting we had in my elementary school, middle school and high school. In my high school we didn't even have windows.. The uniform fluorescent overlighting just depressed me. I wanted to be able to be exposed to light from the sun and to see the sky. Not this fake light. Whenever I'd be back in normal lighting from the sun I swear my mood improved so much more. It just felt better. I think we need to change that. I think it'd help improving education of kids more than we think.

[Simonmaz]

@Tolstoievsky His point is to (pardon the pun) bring to light how important lighting is to our civilization. He is really showing us how much most of us take it for granted.

[Simonmaz]

@Tolstoievsky His point is to (pardon the pun) bring to light how important lighting is to our civilization. He is really showing us how much most of us take it for granted.

[Tolstoievsky]

he doesn't seem to be making any point... just a slideshow of recent architectural developments involving light in innovative ways

[icantsleepsohereiam]

@RGBpulsar our light escaping into the atmosphere does not affect the actual stars. So what if want see stars the city, they're still out there and if you want to see them so badly, get out of the city.