Bonus: Dean Skira – Taman: Design the Need Before the Fixture

Can street lighting be designed from what a place actually needs, rather than from what is in the catalogue? 💡

In this Light Talk bonus, Dean Skira walks Martin Klaasen through Taman, the web-based tool he developed to design street lighting from the site upwards. The idea grew out of Croatia’s light-pollution legislation and Dean’s realisation that existing software only calculates the road surface, not the wider urban environment around it.

Dean shows the Taman workflow step by step: importing a site image, drawing and naming layers, assigning road and pedestrian categories, letting the software position the poles and then optimising the result. Taman generates the ideal photometric curve and compares it with a database of manufacturers’ products to find the closest match on the market.

He also explains how machine learning helps the tool improve with use, why real projects can need 40 to 45 per cent less luminous flux with far less spill light and light trespass, and why the designer should still overrule the software when the context calls for it. This bonus follows the full conversation, Dean Skira: How one designer is revolutionising street lighting. Early access to Taman can be requested at taman.tech.

Would you let software propose the photometry before you choose the fixture? Let’s discuss!

#LightingDesign #StreetLighting #LightPollution #Taman #MachineLearning #LightTalk

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