Emeritus Professor Warren Julian is past-Dean, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney; Life Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand (IESANZ); Honorary Fellow of the Society of Light and Lighting; past-President IESANZ; Editor, Lighting; past Vice-President CIE; Chair, Standards Australia’s Interior Lighting Committee; Co-founder and Chair, Lux Pacifica; and author of over 250 scientific papers, articles, book chapters and books on lighting-related subjects.

For his services to illumination engineering, particularly in education and research; to educational administration and to professional associations he was invested as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2011.

How have human history and technology driven lighting design?

Lighting design, like other design technologies (eg architecture and engineering) has responded to developments in technology and human needs. This talk will briefly cover the evolution lighting design, like other design technologies (eg architecture) has responded to developments in technology and human needs. It will briefly cover the evolution of the modern human animal that walked out of the forest and onto the open plane to become hunter gatherer that eventually settled to become farmers with a complex society. 

That allowed specialisation and the development of built environment technologies, literacy and the arts. Whilst humans have always been daytime animals, they developed lighting technologies that freed them from the constraints of the day/night natural cycle of life. Those who became city dwellers, eventually became more isolated from the outdoors to become indoor cave dwellers. 

The evolution of work and the 24 hour nature of modern life has removed us from our “natural” way of living. It can be argued that the way we now live is only possible due to electric lighting and in particular, that from the tubular fluorescent lamp onwards. Lighting design has evolved, with the possibilities created by new light sources, to become an essential but often unappreciated and neglected service to society.