The research presents evidence of lighting design decisions through a decision support system for the illumination of the facades of neoclassical buildings. The proposed system is based on a novel methodology for lighting neoclassical buildings. The methodology starts with the collection of the most important decorative and architectural elements on facades of neoclassical buildings and filters them to find shared elements. Each element is lit with different types of luminaires in various mounting positions and tested by lighting simulation software to create a database of lighting results. This database can be used to analyze similarities and differences between identical element types in different buildings, identify architectural “preferences” concerning the elements used in each case, detect common elements in various building uses or the use of different elements in similar types of uses, and in general constitute a valuable tool when researching any aspect of the facades of neoclassical buildings.
This research shows that there is further scope into researching lighting design methods for historical buildings and providing a portfolio of lighting solutions to the designers. Evidence from this research provides promising results for the verification of the proposed methodology. The database can be used also to identify predominant neoclassical features of buildings throughout the world and can be categorized and used in a multitude of aspects, from defining the most probable element or group of elements to be found on a specific timeframe, to identifying the most important neoclassical features in a specific country. Further work on this methodology can involve the study of buildings from different architectural periods.
The survey aims to collect information about the database results. The different types of evaluating each result according to a score scale displayed, will reveal quite useful data that will determine the final results of this research.
In the following survey, you are invited to evaluate images by the Visual Result (1 = Unacceptable, 5 = Excellent) produced by artificial lighting in various morphological and decorative elements located on the facades of neoclassical buildings. At the same time, in each image, it is possible to evaluate the levels of Illuminance/Light Intensity and Light Pollution (1 = Very Low, 5 = Very High) resulting from the lighting effect of each image. Finally, you will be able to mention the Emotions that are attributed to each lighting result.
The research was implemented under the project PENER of the Lighting Design Laboratory (School of Applied Arts) of the Hellenic Open University.
Thank you for your participation in this survey.