How good are your optics?
The Insight
Governments are currently providing great support for the delivery of community sport and infrastructure projects throughout Australia. An aspect of these programs and schemes include the investment in infrastructure to encourage participation in sports and activities during night hours.
With the current state of resources at our sporting facilities, the decision lies between starting new or developing existing venues. In population dense areas, the option to acquire new land for sporting and community purposes can be restrictive and impractical.
A solution to the urban sprawl is to make existing sporting facilities more accessible during the day and into the night. While the investment in sports lighting infrastructure is necessary, it should not be obtrusive to nearby residents, transportation users and environmentally sensitive areas.
The Impact
Outdoor sports such as Aussie Rules, Baseball, Rugby, Hockey and Soccer (football) require specialised luminaires powerful enough to emit and focus light onto the field of play. The challenge for designers is to limit the interference of lighting to adjacent environment and properties, particularly in urban dense areas.
This challenge is increasingly evident for professional competition where higher levels of lighting are required. In these instances, a common sports lighting design mistake is to use a luminaire that produces the most light for the money (e.g. lumens per dollar) to ‘flood the area’, however this often leads to lighting of unnecessary locations.
Lighting designers are aware of the constant balancing act between providing focussed lighting to sporting grounds and limiting obtrusive lighting.
There are a number of considerations to sports lighting design and a good sports lighting luminaire should not only produce high quality light efficiently, but more importantly focus its light towards the game. The necessary benefit of sufficient light should never hinder an external party’s right to comfort.
Time for some good optics.