Architectural Engineering Design Group

Newsletter – September 2008 »
Daylight as an Art Form

Daylight as an Art Form

Evidence-based Healthcare Lighting Design

Focusing Light on Sleep

Visual Value of Light

Daylight as an Art Form:
This was a great class on how to take a paradigm that we know to be good for the environment and turn it into something beautiful to look at. There are also many ideas on how to modify sunlight into new shapes and forms.

Speakers:
Lisa Heschong, Architect, IESNA - Principal
Davidson Norris, IESNA - President

Dichroic glass is a useful material for splitting up light as it enters a space.
Using a wall with blades creates an animation of what is going on behind the surface.
Adding Dichroic glass to a boring building façade adds light to an otherwise bland street.
Utilize dichroic reflective glass to reflect cool patterns on the wall with a “target” in mind.
Use cool art glass pieces that interact with daylight
7 World Trade Center in New York City uses reflected light to make the building appear camouflaged to the sky.
A Heliostat can be used to track the sun and reflect direct sunlight into a room or tube using mirrors. Try to creatively use a heliostat to bring natural lighting into a building.
Daylight can also be used as a calendar (Interesting project idea)
How to create Indiana Jones atmosphere in kids areas at recreation centers:

Could use laser pointers
Could also just have a cool “clock/calendar”

Daylight controls are critical in successful daylight design.
Daylight makes a space memorable.
“Full Spectrum” daylight is better than all other light sources.
Sunlight can be used to create reflective color.
Use sun angles to create an oculus to act as a calendar. This is similar to Roman temples and Renaissance churches.
A cloth or panel below a skylight is a good low budget way to add quality daylighting to a space.
Day and night lighting should have two separate “feelings”. It’s okay to have separate design concepts for each.
Don’t try to re-create same lighting solutions with electrical lighting as daylight.
Movement and variation of lighting is desirable.
Color changes by the time of day.
Play with shadows and potentially prisms for variety.
Play with colors and how they reflect on to other surfaces.
First rule of daylighting – know your sun angles

Sundials inside buildings
Romans mastered this – way back when

In California, over the course of a year, the average sun angle is 30°
Use daylight in smaller doses as a splash of attention.
Solo tubes are nice, but aesthetically there can be better solutions with varying monitors/skylights and ceiling treatments.
Black or dark surface behind glass can create reflections

Keep walls behind glass white/bright to reduce reflections

If there is too much sun, pretend you are outdoors

Add solar shade structures

Create a glazing wall is like lining it with light fixtures

Very useful overhead

For exterior lighting you can create playfulness with holes cut in patio roof structure to bring in freckles of sunlight that move.
Special moments that happen with lighting at specific times of the year

Phoenix Central Library at Summer Solstice

Be careful with electric vs. Daylight designs competing with each other

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