Éléonore Delisse’s Day & Night Light Rebalances Our Circadian Rhythm.

Our natural body clocks are programmed to respond to light. In some people, dropping light levels in autumn and winter disrupts our internal clock, or circadian rhythm, setting off a depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Noticing the lack of a considered, design-led response to the problem, student Éléonore Delisse created this light as part of her Design Academy Eindhoven graduation project. She designed a timepiece that oscillates within a period of 24 hours, using light to rebalance our circadian rhythm.

A dichroic glass rotates slowly above a lamp to create different colours. The clock is set to generate a blue light in the mornings, to lessen melatonin production and stimulate wakefulness. In the evenings another light kicks in, casting a warm amber glow that sets off melatonin production that makes us feel drowsy, softly sending us to sleep.

“All the existing solutions to SAD focus on the intensity of light, I was interested to look at this from another perspective. Not only by being only exposed to certain lux levels, but by having a coloured rhythm that influences your brain behaviour.” 

“Design connects, makes us more aware, stimulates us to learn, to be active, to give as well as take. Design puts the human experience at the core of a product or a service – emotionally, physically, sensorially and subliminally. Design addresses our human needs, and starts from real life.

As a designer, my vision is to create projects which have a strong attachment to reality. I aim to generate a new system of thought based on attention to people, while material and immaterial assets would come as consequences. To design with and for the people. I see society as a whole where its actors could collaborate in unusual ways and combine their skills to create a different future.” – Éléonore Delisse.

[Images courtesy of Éléonore Delisse. Photography by Laurids Gallée.]