It’s been a long time since I contributed to this blog, mainly because I’ve been mad busy trying to keep my hand in as a journalist, attend family dos, keep up with my MSc in Architecture, remain on top of my communications and PR responsibilities and live in Edinburgh and Brighton.

Anyway here I am back from ABTT where I had some interesting discussions with a variety of industry professionals relating to incorporating micro power generation into the fabric of buildings and my pet subject – how much longer can we justify building venues such as cinemas, theatre and arenas that are 100% closed to natural light and rely entirely on artificial lighting to function?

After all there are still many people in developing countries who go to bed when it gets dark and get up when it’s light with no access to electric lighting, even for the most essential of activities!

Surely it’s every sectors responsibility to find tangible ways to prevent unnecessary or indulgent use of energy and thus reduce societies relentless use of fossil fuel and pollution of our atmosphere.

This brings me back to the argument for lighting auditoriums with natural light when they’re not being used for performance or technical rehearsals. In the present economic and environmental climate it seems a flagrant waste of energy and money to purposely design any part of a building with no access to natural daylighting.

Given that the total energy pull of lighting in commercial buildings lies anywhere between 25-40%, and that energy costs aren’t about to go down, fossil fuel resources aren’t increasing and the environmental damage resulting from GHG emissions is grave, it’s surely common sense to reduce the use of artificial lighting in all commercial buildings, as far as practicably possible.

In theatre, as in many other business sectors, there’s a tendency to seek solutions that allow business to continue as usual, rather than taking an entirely fresh approach. Theatres and their designers would prefer to replace traditional lighting fixtures with low energy, often-ugly light sources, rather than take the trouble to rethink venue-building design from scratch.

It’s not just theatres either, consider the range of purpose built, blacked out rooms: lecture theatres, cinemas, exhibition halls, arenas and arts centres to name but a few. Within each of these sectors there are further sub sectors of use. All are used in different ways, some just for performance in the evenings with a couple of matinees during the week, others such as repertory or producing houses often rehearse on the stage in the morning sometimes with stage lights sometimes not, others may have events occurring that don’t actually require specialist lighting.

The ingress of daylight into auditoriums may also have a positive effect on the workforce. Scientific evidence suggests that humans are considerable more efficient and happier if they’re exposed to daylight. Of course there are plenty of examples of auditoriums that benifit from natural daylight but not enough and even those who have access to it do not always use it.

I remember at Glyndebourne – where I was deputy lighting manger for some years – how refreshing it was, after a mornings rehearsal, to see the stage stripped, the back iron go out and the daylight stream in. A whole day in a dark auditorium can be an oppressive thing and maintaining concerntration can often be a challlenge.

So for an industry that prides itself on innovation and invention it comes as a surprise to find that auditorium design has remained largely the same since the advent of electric lighting.

Time to really start thinking outside the black box then?