Lighting of immediate surrounding area

Lighting of the immediate surrounding area shall be related to the lighting level within the working area and in addition create the conditions for well-balanced luminance distribution within the normal field of vision.

Lighting of immediate surrounding area

Extensive changes to the lighting level around the working area can cause visual stress and unpleasantness.

The immediate surrounding area is defined as a strip around the working area with a width of at least 0.5 m.The size of the immediate surrounding area shall be determined by the planner and may, for specific types of workplaces, need to be increased to a greater width than 0.5 m.

The size of the immediate surrounding area can be increased:

  • When the working area size is small.
  • If high illuminance occurs within the working area.
  • With work that involves movement.

The illuminance in the immediate surrounding area can be lower than within the working area, but should on average not fall below the values set out in the table below.

The variation of illuminance, i.e. the ratio between the lowest illuminance in relation to the average illuminance in the immediate surrounding area shall be as small as possible and not fall below 0.4.

  1. Working area (laxba)
    – Size and placement are established by the light planner.
  2. Immediate surrounding area (loxbo)
    – The size to be established by the light planner (la+≥2×0.5 m)x(ba+2x≥2×0.5 m).
  3. Peripheral surrounding area
    – A strip of at least 3 m around the immediate surrounding area or up to the walls of the room. However, a zone of 15% of the shortest dimension of the room, but a maximum of 0.5 m can be excluded from the walls of the room.