Rethinking traditional design approaches
Traditional, quantitative office lighting mainly focuses on horizontal visual tasks whilst neglecting today's typical viewing direction at the desk with the computer monitor in the centre. As a consequence, the surrounding space gains importance. Designers are therefore faced with the challenge of supplementing minimum normative standards with the fundamentals of perception-orientated lighting design.
The viewing direction at the workstation
In today's office worlds, merely the horizontal lighting of office workplaces is insufficient. Taking a look at an ones desk demonstrates that vertical surfaces determine around 80% of the visual information of our binocular field of view.
Visual comfort via vertical lighting
A visually calm environment is important for achieving high visual comfort when working on screens. As such, uniformly illuminated surfaces behind the screen among other factors enable concentrated work because the eye is able to adapt to a single brightness level. The minimum standard as specified in EN 12464-1 with uniformity of >0.1 still does not correspond to uniform lighting, and uniformity of at least 0.3 is recommended.
Risks from lack of wallwashing
If brightness on vertical surfaces behind the monitor is insufficient, the risk of eye strain increases due to the contrast ratio between the foreground and background. If the screen brightness is not adjusted, the eye may fatigue due to continuous adaptation between the brightly lit screen and dark wall surfaces.