Towers for the night

This chapter explores how residential towers are designed for their nocturnal appreciation and inhabitation. By focusing on the design of Principal Tower in London, the chapter asks how the design of towers for the night can provide a platform for considering their potential role in the formation of an urban public night as commons. Drawing on interview materials, the chapter reveals how the tower’s nocturnal appearance and inhabitation is enhanced through elaborate lighting design: On the building facade, in the lobby and in the domestic interior spaces, lighting is introduced to instigate atmospheric shifts across domestic and urban spaces. Yet as the elaborate lighting infrastructure starts to fail, the chapter considers how light that spills and seeps across domestic and public spaces provide an unlikely opening for reimaging the urban night. By embracing the ‘vibrancy’ of urban lighting as a collective matter of public concern, the chapter aims to promote and encourage a more socially and environmentally just design of the towering night that might contribute to an urban common.