Sean Casey

Surface Exitance: Approach, Method + Application My thesis is focused on understanding and developing luminous exitance - the density of flux emanating from surfaces, as opposed to the incidences of them - as the core metric in a revised lighting design methodology. I developed and tested a calculation methodology using AGi32 that allows designers to work with mean room surface exitance (MRSE) as a measure of ambient brightness. I tested the approach with an integrated daylight and electric lighting design for a folly at the tip of Manhattan's Pier 45. This integrated design was developed using MRSE as its sole metric. It creates a bright-to-dim adaptive daylight sequence and a dim-to-bright electric light adaptive sequence as occupants move from an outer chamber to an inner chamber. By putting exitance at the center of this approach, I aim to articulate new insights about the interaction of space, materials and light that could yield more responsive designs strongly rooted in lit appearances.