Building Community Through Better Street Lights

What can lighting do for a community? For some fascinating answers, just look at the results of one pilot research project in Cartagena, Colombia.

Concentrating on the Caribbean city’s extremely busy Getsemaní neighborhood, the project, a collaboration spearheaded by Arup’s lighting team, worked with local residents to look at possible ways to light the area in a manner that strengthened community links, to create distinctively local solutions. Completed in 2015, the project has this year been commemorated in a new film by collaborators Plane-Site, providing a snapshot of a neighborhood not just discussing how it wants to light itself, but also more broadly trying to negotiate a period of dramatic change without losing its soul.