Turn off lights

"Live with the sun 4/8" Less than hours turning on it.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

04: Turn off lights

Since I have been involved in architecture and space design, I have noticed that the way of using light in Japanese houses, or how to create a lighting space, has been spread as a standard during the period of high economic growth after WW2, and is still remained. Of course we could have been improved much more than that but it hasn't.

Why are just one fluorescent lights (currently LED maybe) attached to the ceiling? If you become a little more aware of the interior, you should be able to learn how to effectively use indirect lighting, multiple lighting, task lighting, etc., but that direction is not the main stream (in Japan).

When you go to bars, cafes, and other shops, the lights are turned down at night to create a space with an atmosphere. When people go there, they find the dimly lit space cosy, but why would they turn on the bright lights at home?

However, putting aside the question here, let’s talk about myself, I don't have any kind of pendant lighting or ceiling lighting attached to the ceiling each of in the middle of my rooms. There is one episode about this. When I inspected the room before renting it, the Japanese-style room and the another bed room each had pendant lights, but I negotiated to have them removed and used in other vacant houses. For sure, I wanted to use the one I had selected, but I also knew that I wouldn't have to use ceiling lighting fixtures in the first place.

As for how to light the room after sunset, I attached a 40W incandescent bulb to a desk light with an arm set on the table, and bit the dimmer switch to reduce the light from about 5W to about 20W. The light sources are directed toward the ceiling and corners of the walls to provide indirect lighting that dimly illuminates the entire room.

Although my room is a 2LDK plan, the sliding doors separating each room have been removed, and in the end it is used as a large studio room, so if there is only one vague light, it will cover most of the time while you are awake.

Certainly, I think we need to get used to the darkness, I think it depends on the aesthetics of the people who live there, or rather their way of thinking, but I think that there is night time at night. Anything that requires bright light should be done during the day. If I really want to read a book, I read it under another stand with a task light.

In other words, my nights are always as dark as a quiet bar. But it works at least for me. Plus, I often use candles. Light a large candle with a diameter of 14 cm and a height of 20 cm that I bought over 15 years ago. The swaying flames certainly have a healing effect. Spending an hour or so before bedtime by candlelight isn't bad.

So, in conclusion, I have to turn on any of the light in my rooms if I really need to, but it's only less than couple of hours a day.