Lighting guidelines

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Colour lighting and it's effects

Colour lighting is used for the following purposes:

festivities
special events
to enhance selected features and/or foliage.

When you use colour lighting the following factors have to be taken into account:

colour rendering
colour temperature
primary and saturated colour

Any such lighting should be operational during celebrations and/or festive occasions.

Check the different applications for colour temperature and colour rendition lighting. Be aware of good and bad examples achieved from coloured lighting.

What is colour rendering?

It is an index (CRI) against which colours are accurately depicted by a light source.

The index ranges from 0 to 100 with 100 being the perfect match. A CRI of 80 or greater will provide good colour rendering.

A CRI below 65, (e.g. high pressure sodium) is not recommended for lighting in Premier Parks, but could be used for unpopulated/infrequent use areas in parks and pathways.

What is colour temperature?

This refers to the correlated colour temperature (CCT) or appearance of the light, measured in Kelvins (K) and will determine the atmosphere or ambience of a place at night. 3000k is warm and inviting, 5000K is very cool and not normally used in pedestrian areas.

Pedestrian lighting considerations for colour temperature & colour rendition

Consideration	Solution
You want people to linger and relax, e.g. selected areas of premier parks, retail areas of town centres.	Choose colour temp of 3000 to 3500K and colour rendering 80+
You do not want people to linger but you do want to project a safe image, e.g. high use car parks, pedestrian linkages, general areas of town centres.	Choose colour temperature of 4000 to 4500K and colour rendering 80+
You want to project a safe image, e.g. a short cut or through routes in suburban areas, pathways in parks.	Choose colour temperature of 4000 to 4500K and colour rendering 65 to 80

Examples of different effects of colour rendition & temperature lighting


Before - high pressure sodium, CRI 45, CCT 2500K	After - metal halide, CRI 80, CCT 4000K

Inviting and relaxing using metal
halide, CRI 80, CCT 3500K

Examples of good saturated colour use

Examples of bad saturated colour use

Published December 2008