This paper explores theoretical and practical alternatives to urban lighting master-plan approaches. Taking urban theorist Roger Sherman’s notion of “radical incrementalism” as its point of departure, the paper discusses lighting design strategies that “utilizes accumulation as a means of producing character and identity” over time. A framework based on accumulation promises coherence across vast urban fields in ways that are different than master-planning because they “celebrate the unknowns of taste, value, use and support.” Urban lighting projects, typically accomplished over years, can be sites of bewildering uncertainty: unpredictable sources of financing; shifts in administration, public processes, and stakeholder confidence; changes in design teams and environmental regulations; as well as unanticipated climactic events such as flooding. To respond effectively to these changes—and, wherever possible, to celebrate them— requires a “legible and resilient framework that can over time absorb design and development initiatives by others while retaining its identity.”
Robust strategies for developing lighting designs based on frameworks of accumulation that help municipalities and campuses feel livable, appealing, stimulating, and safe will be discussed. Case studies reviewed are: the Connective Corridor in Syracuse, NY, the Bridgeport Waterfront in Bridgeport, CT, The Menil Collection Campus in Houston, TX, and “Lighting the Way Home” an interdisciplinary collaboration between the YMCA and Arts on the Block, a non-profit community-based arts program in Montgomery County, Maryland. All four case studies demonstrate how impact can accumulate over time while celebrating the unknowns and unpredictability of lighting the urban environment.
