Urban Nightscape: An Assessment of Artificial Lighting on Place Recognition and Perceived Safety, the Case of Addis Ababa Main City Center
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Date
2024-05-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study explores the impact of artificial lighting on perceived safety, environmental perception, and place identification in urban environments during night. It focuses on four selected areas in main city center of Addis Ababa: Piassa, Arat Kilo, La Gare, and Merkato. The study reveals a direct correlation between lighting and city image, with pedestrian safety directly related to visibility and maintenance of lighting posts. The research also highlights the lack of attention given to lighting on urban design elements like landmarks, monuments, historic buildings, and public spaces compared to street lighting. The study uses international codes of practice in lighting masterplans and interviews, analyzing data in charts and graphs. The result of this study shows that from the selected 8 areas, Yekatit 12 Memorial (35.38%), Arat kilo patriots monument (46.68%), Addis Ababa city administration building (87.67%), Churchill Road (73.13%), Ethio-Cuba friendship park(41.93%), Lion of Judah near Beherawi theater (37.7%), Lion of Judah in La Gare (56.14%) and Meskel square (92%) recognized in comparison from the daytime recognition test this shows an average of 58.89% of recognizability of this areas due to lack of artificial lighting and the reassurance of the place on pedestrians directly impacted by visibility of the surrounding environment. Finally, its recommended that to better recognize and identify and to improve the perceived safety of pedestrians urban lighting should integrated with urban design elements and responsible stakeholder should be involved in both design and maintenance.
Key words: Nightscape, Landmarks, Artificial lighting, Safety and Reassurance, Recognition