Look to the Sun for More of Your Home's Lighting
term effects of emitting carbon into the atmosphere, using less energy for heating, cooling, ventilating and lighting a house is becoming extremely important. Passive daylighting — designing a house to take advantage of sunlight and minimize the use of artificial lighting — is one step in this direction.
A number of external factors, such as adjacent buildings and trees, affect how much sun reaches a house and into particular rooms, but these variables can be controlled by adding windows on two or more sides to even out lighting and reduce glare, getting light into the center of deep plans, borrowing light from one space into another, and filtering sunlight through fixed and movable means to reduce heat gain.
I’ve looked at how bringing light from two sides has been seen to be socially conducive while also having sustainable benefits. While that ideabook focused on windows, one situation that I’ve grown to appreciate is when light from windows on one or more walls is balanced by light coming from a skylight.
Even large windows, like those here, can leave parts of a room dark, requiring artificial lighting for more even lighting. Skylights can bring more natural light (more direct, depending on the time of the day) to deeper parts of a house and its rooms.
Artists’ studios are very good precedents for how to create even levels of natural light within a fairly open space. In this example we can see three types of apertures: sliding doors at the corner, clerestory windows (those on the left are translucent) and skylights with operable shades. Through windows on multiple sides and the ability to control how much direct sunlight enters the space, there is very little need for artificial lighting.
Here is a similar situation: Full-height windows at the corner are balanced by a large skylight. Note how the skylight also serves to give the large, open plan a focus over the seating area.
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A number of external factors, such as adjacent buildings and trees, affect how much sun reaches a house and into particular rooms, but these variables can be controlled by adding windows on two or more sides to even out lighting and reduce glare, getting light into the center of deep plans, borrowing light from one space into another, and filtering sunlight through fixed and movable means to reduce heat gain.
I’ve looked at how bringing light from two sides has been seen to be socially conducive while also having sustainable benefits. While that ideabook focused on windows, one situation that I’ve grown to appreciate is when light from windows on one or more walls is balanced by light coming from a skylight.
Even large windows, like those here, can leave parts of a room dark, requiring artificial lighting for more even lighting. Skylights can bring more natural light (more direct, depending on the time of the day) to deeper parts of a house and its rooms.
Artists’ studios are very good precedents for how to create even levels of natural light within a fairly open space. In this example we can see three types of apertures: sliding doors at the corner, clerestory windows (those on the left are translucent) and skylights with operable shades. Through windows on multiple sides and the ability to control how much direct sunlight enters the space, there is very little need for artificial lighting.
Here is a similar situation: Full-height windows at the corner are balanced by a large skylight. Note how the skylight also serves to give the large, open plan a focus over the seating area.
More…
