Lighting quality self-assessment in Italian home offices

Abstract

The spread of information technology and the improvement of telecommunicating systems have changed the way to conceive work. People performing typical office activities provided with a laptop and an internet connection can work in whatever place: a coffee house, a waiting room of a train station, an airport, or their own home. The habit to work at home has amazingly spread due to the Covid-19 pandemic, arising crucial questions. Are home work-stations comfortable enough to work? Are lighting conditions of residential spaces proper to perform typical office activities? This paper presents a survey investigating the typical characteristics of the luminous environment in home working spaces (considering both daylight and electric light) and people’s average awareness about light and lighting-connected themes. The research has been carried out through an online questionnaire addressed to home workers and students forced to stay home because of the Covid-19 spread. The results demonstrated that many interviewees have difficulties in managing light and are not completely aware of the right actions to take to improve lighting quality of home workplaces. Moreover, a complete lack of knowledge about electric light has emerged. So, popularizing more knowledge about light and lighting-connected themes is prominent. Indeed, now and even more in the future, people will work in places other than the traditional workplaces, for which standards regulating lighting characteristics do not exist. In this context, the definition of ad hoc guidelines and the spread of best practices should be a crucial goal for researchers and experts in lighting.

Keywords

• home working
• residential lighting
• lighting quality
• covid-19