turning down the bright lights in the big city

I don't think it's a big mystery that light has an effect on one's mental health. Good lighting is certainly one of my highest prerequisites when I'm looking for a place to live. The fact that apartments which receive better sunlight are usually more expensive hints that most people feel the same way.

Japan, a country which had arguably achieved some semblance of mastery for interior lighting design, is for whatever reason (relics of post-war economic habits?) cursed with painfully abrasive lighting almost everywhere. Anyone who has worked or entered most any Japanese office knows what I'm talking about -- a farm of fluorescent tubes on the ceiling radiating everything a nice glow of ... death? Monotony? Grey? Just whatever you do, don't go in a convenience store at 3 in the morning, drunk, without sun glasses.

I hear people say that there is good fluorescent lighting out there -- warm, flicker resistance fluorescence -- but I have yet to see it. Personally, there is nothing more painful than working in a blindingly lit, grey office space. It slows me down, makes me feel sluggish and tired.

The lighting on trains here has always struck me as being poor -- much in the same way office lighting here is painful -- but it wasn't until I went to Scandinavia earlier this year that I learned how beautifully lit public transportation could be. Which got me thinking ...

Since it's not unusual for people in Tokyo to have hour+ commutes I began to wonder what effect improving lighting in a public space like a train would have on personal well-being. I think it would be fascinating to add a "soft-lighting" car to a train-line (much like the woman-only car on the Keio line) and do a study on stress levels. Track blood pressure and other indicators of stress of a hundred businessmen with commutes longer than one hour over the course of half a year. Have one group ride only on current, harshly lit trains, and the other on the more softly, indirectly lit special car. Compare results at the end of the period.

I think .. or actually, I would hope, that those on the car with better lighting would come out "happier" or, at the very least, with lower physiological indicators of stress.

While David D'Heilly was able to turn a couple of cars on the Yamanote line into art, something tells me nobody is going to give me a train to design the lighting for anytime soon. Although I think it would be a blast to re-imagine train lighting for Japan. These are the sorts of details which, in aggregate, can have a profound effect on the lives of the millions of people who interact with them daily.