Philips, one of the world’s leading lighting design companies, claims that nowadays public lighting is being used for aesthetics whereas for many years it's main purpose was to guide drivers. There has been a shift from roadway lighting to lighting for people throughout the years. The company believes in using the latest technology advancements in LED lighting solutions to illuminate cities. In the document “Experience how architectural lighting can breathe life into your city”, they mention how a common misconception is that the brighter the lighting, the safer the locality. In reality, excessive use of light is not needed to evoke public security. However very often light trespass is created, which is the unwanted spilling of light onto private properties. This not only looks unpleasant but is a complete waste of energy. It can easily be avoided with the appropriate lighting fixtures. Anya Paskovic (2012) adds on how very few cities have shown such an interest in lighting design. She presents valid points on how to achieve a successful lighting plan : Lighting cannot be designed appropriately if the existing space and existing lighting is taken for granted. She also suggests Performance Based Zoning' to regulate the intensity of light depending on the area. Another point presented is to take advantage of tested concepts and technologies. These are some of the issues which I will make sure to present within my hypothesis essay since it proves how one should use the appropriate lighting fixtures within a space.
References: Paskovic,A., 2012. Planning for Public Spaces in Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek. M.Pl. Queen’s University Available at:http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/7464 [Accessed 28 March 2017]. Philips, 2014. Experience how architectural lighting can breathe life into your city. [pdf] Philips. Available at: http://www.lighting.philips.com/b-dam/b2b-li/en_AA/Applications/masthead-pdfs/Architecture-Landscape-brochure-LR-spread.pdf [Accessed 28 March 2017].
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After having the opportunity to experience working abroad for two months, upon returning back to school in November, I had to make up for the lost lectures during that time. With this I also came back to find a number of assignments which I had yet to start working on and submit.
As always I find myself comparing MCAST's system to that of the University and with that said, I strongly believe that when a student is accepted for erasmus the subject being missed during that period should be compensated for. I managed to finish every assignment on time expect for one in particular which involved group work. Since everyone had already been set up in groups, I had to do work which should have been divided by three by myself and to be honest I did not mind this since an extension was granted. Part of the assignment included listening to presentations by other groups and compare and contrast these presentations. Of course I had missed the presentations since I was still on the program. I then had to set up a meeting with the lecturer for her to explain what was expected in the task and what subject I were to conduct the research on. Unfortunately this meeting never happened until only few weeks ago, months after I returned from the Erasmus program since we could not find a sloth were both of us were available to meet. As we are approaching the last weeks of the second semester, assignments from the first semester were the last thing on my mind, however I had to complete them. I was also offered to meet the lecturer to check my work before submitting but I did not want to keep hanging on to it any longer so as soon as I finished I uploaded it to get it over and done with. I still believe that MCAST should arrange the erasmus-assignment issue as I ended up having double the work when coming back. Erasmus is not a holiday as many may think but a two month internship with a company , working full-time hours everyday. Coming back and having to catch up with two months of work is the last thing on your mind. There should be some sort of compensation or maybe some work should be reduced (such as group work) depending on the given task. During this weeks lecture we had the opportunity to present our findings as a team against public CCTV while the other half of the class were in favour. Before I had started researching the topic I was in favour, however after some time researching I completely changed my mind on how I viewed public CCTV. Below are a number of strong points and questions from what we found as a group from reliable sources on the internet:
Questions to be asked:
Advantages that could be used as arguments from the opponent group: May prove to be effective in catching Petty crimes. Response: Most of the time cameras that catch such crimes are through private cameras anyways which are owned by the shop or office itself. Disadvantages of having public CCTV installed:
Some state that the abuse of cctv cameras is a conspiracy theory, however the American Civil Liberties Union and a number of news websites talk about a scandal which happened during the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, for example, the FBI - as well as many individual police departments around the nation - conducted illegal operations to spy upon and harass political activists who were challenging racial segregation and the Vietnam War. This comes to show how these cameras can be abused not only by hackers but the institution itself. Case study of CCTVS not being effective: Londoners are under greater surveillance than anyone else in the democratic world. Sociologists carrying multiple studies on this issue have found that they have not reduced crime throughout the years. As found in one study on a BBC article, the "reductions were noted in certain categories but there was no evidence to suggest that the cameras had reduced crime overall in the city centre." The same study from 2005 for the British Home Office, also found that cameras did not cut crime or the fear of crime (as had a study back in 2002, which was also for the British government). References BBC News, 2005. CCTV systems fail to cut crime. BBC News. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/4294693.stm [Accessed 6 March 2017]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2192911.stm Li.A., 2016. Pros and Cons of surveillance cameras in public spaces. Available at: https://reolink.com/pros-cons-of-surveillance-cameras-in-public-places/ [Accessed 6 March 2017]. |
Rita Curmi2nd year Student Archives
May 2017
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