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Thank you everyone for your comments and reflections! I just want to say that for the short time we had (5x2.5 hour sessions) we achieved a lot!
The core of this Cafe was to learn how to measure and analyze daylight and appreciate the sustainability of its use in architectural design. The VR component was over and above, and we appreciate that it takes a lot to learn and navigate efficiently. Given that most of you already had heavy course loads, we designed this course as more of a journey of exploration than a watertight lab experiment. I see the little setbacks we had in implementation as natural symptoms of a work in active development, and I am quite happy we worked to resolve them together. It is important to always raise critical questions about what we're doing, and I was happy to hear your comments.
On the issue of the auto-exposure in Enscape, I am not 100% sure at this point that it had a catastrophically detrimental effect. Looking at the DF maps Detti shared, it seems like the values at the spot we were reading the text from are quite similar even outside of VR. When experimenting with Moritz's model at the end of the session, we also managed to turn off the auto-exposure (I think), and the effect was not as big as I imagined.
Perhaps the takeaway is that for a sight-intensive task such as reading, the interventions we had only had a subtle effect, and it was subjective differing from one person to the next. But then daylight itself is an ephemeral and fluid being, we should respect and appreciate that, and capturing the most of it in terms of quantity and spirit is a pursuit we should keep in mind as architects and designers.

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wooden floor, white walls and mirror ceiling

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wooden floor, light blue walls and ceiling

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Trying out our models in VR was an incredible experience, next to learning I really just had a lot of fun. The differences between the rooms weren’t as clear as I expected, but we could still see some of them. I put our designs later in the Velux Daylight Visualizer to get a daylight factor map of them, and it showed really nicely the changes. It was kind of the opposite as I expected: I thought we would see it more and the program would show it less. (I will add these maps on a different padlet entry.)

I thought the bright yellow paint would be more uncomfortable to the eye, but it really wasn’t. I’m sure it was partly because of the limitations of virtual reality, or that I didn’t make it bright enough, but still, interesting result.

The mirror ceiling really made a difference on the daylight factor map, I wish I would have made an all-mirror room, but I wanted to stay on the grounds of reality – a mirror ceiling is something that isn’t so foreign that it could never be implemented.

Overall these new tools we learned to use could be very helpful in our later work. Maybe not VR itself, until it gets more accessible, but just to make a daylight factor map is pretty easy but something not all architects can or would think to do.

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In the last study cafe session we took a dive into the immersive world of VR. We used Varjo glasses for this trip. The destinations were our very own Revit models that we had previously designed for this purpose. In the different Revit models each of us tried to create a series of spaces that would reflect a single aspect of daylight. For example balconies in front of the main window, materials inside the roon or skylights on the ceiling. So with there models we entered the EVA lab in Rakennustalo.

We tested the daylight of our models according to how readable a text was on a virtual A4-paper. The reading distance was 1.5 meters away from the wall in which the text was put on. The hyphothesis was that if the lighting conditions were good, then the text would be easily readable in the VR. And if the model room was too dark, then the virtual text would be harder to read.

After some technical difficulties we managed to get the test running.

We then noticed some issues with this approach. The quality of the rendering did not permit to see the text clearly at first. We think that putting a text on the wall to test its readability was a nice method in theory to test the comfortability of the daylight in a room, but the quality of the screen made it complicated to judge it objectively. Sometimes the text became blurry like the software did not render the picture as sharp as it should have.

One of the other problems is that sometimes the lighting differences between two different models can be almost imperceptible. It was hard to make sense of real differences between the test rooms.

Automatic exposure adjustment in Enscape made it so that the daylight was very similar in every situation. The software adjusted the picture exposure automatically and we could not switch it of with this setting. So we figured there should have beer bigger perceived differences in the lumination.

All and all, it seems that VR as a tool to experiment with daylight in modeling and in architecture is very promising. We feel there would be some work to do still to better prepare the method of testing, but it provides a very immersive and fast way of experiencing space. We would be looking forward to work more with this technology in the future.

All problems aside, we had a great time. Because we knew we learned something very valuable, how to measure daylight and how study the effects of our designs when it comes to daylight. Plus now we know how to use VR! A very big thank you to the teachers for all this useful knowledge.We collectively were also very happy that we chose this topic as a lens of this course!

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The last Study Café was held in the EVA Lab and we measured the effects of daylight in our models. We put a poem on a paper to the same wall on every model and we were comparing the legibility of it. So we were all standing on the same point in every model had to try to read the poem.

We used Likert scale 1-5 to measure the legibility, where 1 was not readable and 5 was easily readable. It sounded pretty simple as a plan, but we encountered some obstacles on the road. First we had problems with rendering. But it was not the fault of the technology, it was our own fault. We didn’t set the settings correctly. Second we forgot to create an exact location from which everyone tested the legibility. Again our own fault. And then finally we had problems with the ‘’sunlighting’’. We didn’t set the settings perfectly so it made it pretty hard to know for sure how our models were affecting daylight. Also there were only six people doing the test. more participants were needed to see true results.

All problems aside, I had a great time. Because I knew I learned something very valuable, how to measure daylight and how study the effects of our designs when it comes to daylight. Plus now I know how to use VR! A very big thank you to the teachers for all this useful knowledge. I am also very happy that I chose this topic as a lens of this course.

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n the forth Study Café session we went to the Extended Virtual Architecture – Laboratory, A.K.A. EVA Lab. A class room were students have the opportunity to experience their 3D models virtually and rendered in real-time. We had prepared our own models of the classroom and everyone had their own versions of it. The purpose of this Study Café was to prepare us for the last Study Café where we somehow measure the effects of daylight in our models.

I had to play with the length, width and height of the classroom models. Plus I had also modeled columns in it to see how it would affect daylight. I made probably 6 different versions of it.

I had previously tried VR glasses, but only for gaming and it was a Mario Racing game if I remember correctly. So basically this was new to me. We used the best VR glasses on the market, which were pretty amazing…! We opened our models in Enscape and immersed eachother into the virtual world.

First it felt very strange and fake, but after some time I really enjoyed it. It’s crazy how the body doesn’t know the difference between whats real and whats fake. What I was seeing on the glasses felt real on my body. For example the heights and depths felt pretty real. Even though the rendering wasn’t the best, but I can only imagine what it’s going to be like in five years.

The Study Café got me really excited about the future of our profession. I imagined that maybe in the near future I could do my modeling and design with VR, and see the actual effects of it.

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After we had tested out and learned already a few key points from out VR experimentations in Study Café 4, I used the break between the Study Cafes to optimize the previously produced model and prepared it for the proper small experiment in this study café. Furthermore, I also already prepared the video files that were produced so that they could be used in the making of the reflective clip we had to produce.

Now coming to the Study Café 5 we prepared to properly test the daylight in our experimental models. For this our teachers came up with the idea to test the subjective feeling of daylight by doing a reading test under certain conditions and noting down our results. For that we added the same sample text in the same size to all our models and we also used the same sample text in real life beforehand to be able to compare it. During the real life test, we already saw some differences in the placement of the text in regard to the available daylight in the room and how this affected our ability to read the text. It also showed though how individual and subjective this test was as we had vastly different results varying by person and their general vision.

This also translated to the experiments in VR later on where we all went through the same models virtually and tried to read the text, but got very varying results. Furthermore, we also had some difficulties with way that the VR Environment worked and as such there were certain limitations which further reduced our ability of reading the sample text. The difficulties included pixelation of the text image through the render software blurriness through a not always ideal headset position on our heads and issues with the automatic brightness adjustment from the rendering software. At the end we were able to deal with some of these difficulties but it was too late to fully complete the experiment. But we still were able to gather a lot of information about daylight which is valuable to further understand the topic and how it affects humans in architecture.

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This last session is dedicated to experimenting with all the group’s modeled scenarios and collecting data on our perception of the readability of the text in each case. We used the Likert scale method. Unfortunately, a lack of organization (grouping the models, adding the A4 texts, adding some distance markets in the models) meant that we lost a lot of time and were not able to test everyone’s models. The experience however was still very successful. The data collected did not enable to make conclusions, but the process was nonetheless very educating. Certain limitations to this experiment were: the difficulty to place ourselves at the same distance to the A4 in every scenario, although we place markers on the floor. We tried to place cameras in each space to see the result for the camera every time but that turned out difficult. The distance is very important because just a small difference made the focus on the text ranging from verry readable to not at all. Also, automatic exposure adjustment in Enscape made it so that the daylight was very similar in every situation. All and all, it seems that VR as a tool to experiment with daylight in architecture is very promising. We feel there would be some work to do still to better prepare the method of testing, but it provides a very immersive and fast way of experiencing space. I would be looking forward to work more with this technology in the future.

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Today we visited the VR lab for the first time. Unfortunately, I had to leave early so it was a short session for me. I opened the model in Enscape and quickly immersed myself in the VR experience. It was quite disorienting and, as someone who has never really played video games, difficult to get a hang of the controls and moving around in this virtual environment. But it quickly got better. It was a good first test and I was able to assess all the issues with my model that I could then correct to have a better experience. For example, I had not defined an actual ‘ground’ which means that my avatar could not walk around the building. It could just fly around. Also, some default materials that I had not modified were reflecting surfaces which made the experience very disorienting and greatly affected the perception of daylight.

After this session in the lab, I was able to work on optimizing my Revit model and creating a scenario that will enable me to test the effects of different architectural elements on the perception of daylight. I decided to focus mainly on balconies as well as different window openings. Some of the scenarios modeled for testing are: balcony with a glazed railing, balcony with an opaque railing, glazed or not, wall on left and/or right sides, different structural elements placement, etc. After this, I modified the window openings of the room and applied it to each different balcony scenario. This including for example a fully glazed wall, higher windows, a single glazed door, etc.

The last modifications is to place a text (common to all the students) on the back wall opposite of the windows. This text is placed on an A4 sized paper and placed at the height of 2m.

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This third study café was all about taking our theoretical knowledge about daylight to practice. After having each measured manually daylight in our own room or house, we also wanted to get the computer-generated daylight map of the daylight results. For that, we started to use Revit in which there is a program’s sunlight analysis. Some people also used Velux dayllight caluclator, which can be faster than on Revit.  For some people the results showed there was a serious lack of light, which they could already sense without the data confirming it. Everyone found the use of this tool very interesting, and most of them were considering using it more often.

To prepare the next study café, we divided the work by each working on one or several aspects of how the daylight in a room could be modified: colour, material, size of windows, balcony, room orientation, ceiling height.... The aim is to build different models in revit which includes changes from one of these parameters to compare the daylight in each rooms, and then use Enscape to visualize them in VR.

Some questions that resulted from the following were: Why isn’t this technology not being used more often in our work? Why isn’t daylighting properly adressed in housing?

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Today was the final session of study café, in which we tested the daylight of our models according to how readable a text was, 1.5 meters away from the wall. We had to make some adjustments at first because the quality of the rendering did not permit to see the text clearly at first. I think putting a text on the wall to test its readability was a nice method in theory to test the comfortability of the daylight in a room, but the quality of the screen made it complicated to judge it objectively. Also, if we were to judge the room without the reading method, the comfortability would also have been less objective, since some people have preferences for certain materials for a room for example. One of the other problems is that sometimes the lighting differences between two different models can be almost imperceptible.

Besides, we found very different results for the same room, there was sometimes a big gap between people’s judgement of the same room which I don’t think would’ve happened as much in real life. But I think that with time, the accuracy of VR will make the model look more realistic and people will be able to rate it more accurately too. Overall, it was a very interesting experience, and I hope this kind of testing will be also applied to test different parts of the design too.

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During this session, we had the opportunity to experiment with daylight in virtual reality. We explored the effects of texture and material on the way we perceive natural light with Detti. It was an interactive session where one person had control over the texture and material of the space, while the other experienced it in VR.

As we were making changes to the texture and material, I was expecting to see more noticeable differences in the way we perceived the natural light. For example, I expected to see more changes in the sensation between different sized windows in the same room. However, the changes were not as pronounced as I had hoped.

Despite this, I do think that VR has the potential to become a great tool for assessing lighting. With some improvements in the future, I'm confident that it will become an effective way to experience and experiment with lighting in a more realistic way.

One limitation that we noticed during the session was the lack of realism in the way that the light was rendered in VR. While it was possible to see changes in the lighting, it didn't quite feel as realistic as experiencing natural light in a physical space. This is an area that will require further development in order to fully realize the potential of VR in lighting design.

The session was a valuable learning experience in exploring the possibilities and limitations of VR in lighting design. It's clear that there is still much to be done in this area, but I'm excited to see how it develops in the future.

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In the third study café session we started to work with Revit and the program's sunlight analysis.

I haven't used Revit much, and even then I only used the basic modelling functions so everything is pretty new to me but I'm trying to catch up.

We used the daylight measuring tool on the room we measured by hand last time. It was so interesting to see it visualized! We didnt get quite the same numbers, but the map followed nicely the pattern we got. It was also a very bad result – definitely not enough light, which we could already see but now we had data to confirm it.

We devided the assignment of giving the classroom more daylight into different topics. Someone changes the windows’ size or place, the orientation of the room, ceiling height, etc.

Me and my partner are going to work with textures and colours. It was the first thing that came to my mind when we first talked about how dark the room is – that the walls are grey, which just makes it even darker. I also remember seeing a video a while back about wall colours in tight spaces, and how a bright coloured paint (like yellow) might get a better result than white, because even though it does not reflect quite as much light, on the white walls the shadows in the corners also seem darker.

I love working with colours and materials – it’s not even juts because of my architecture studies, digital painting is a big hobby of mine. Nowadays the trend is making everything white and minimalistic in interiors. I’m wondering if I could bring back a bit more colours in my designs. This excercize specializes in daylight, without other factors (like psychological effect) but I hope we will still feel different when we stand in the different rooms in VR.

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In preparation to this study café, I was given the task to model different building designs focusing on atriums, courtyards and light-shafts. To make this exercise more interesting and more relatable to our own real life experience I chose to focus on creating a model of the space we are all familiar with and that we all agreed it has less than ideal daylighting, the concrete stairs and the Glass Box Studio Space. So I created a simplified model of this space in Revit and started to implement the current daylighting solution and some alternative solutions which for example included larger skylights over the triple height space of the concrete stairs or completely getting rid of the concrete stair space and creating a courtyard in its place instead.

I brought this model to our study café to then be able to see it in VR using the equipment of the schools EVA-lab. During this time in VR we were able to explore the model, walk through it and experience the space and we started to adapt different parameters in the design such as changes in the materials or changing the time of day and weather which affects daylight. Unfortunately we were not yet able to test the different design choices I prepared due to some compatibility issues with the software versions but we are now aware of these and can be prepared for the next session in which we actually want to record our experience in a more controlled experiment.

It was very fun to see our models in VR and watch each other experience the different spaces.

As we also have to work on a video talking about daylight as part of this study café I had also brought my camera and filmed parts of our experiences which then can be used to showcase our methods to explain the steps we took to test daylighting solutions.

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On 24.3 there is a workshop for the whole course, and our next Cafe session will be on the 14th of April.

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On the third Studio Café we took everything we had learned so far to practice. My groupmates shared their models of their own homes that they had measured. Models were created in Revit because of a plugin that allows you to analyze daylight (daylight being our main focus). It was fascinating to see how far technology has gone. The plugin could actually recreate daylight on the given model. Wow!

It was a really memorable experience to see how could one use this plugin to create better design when it comes to daylight. The plugin itself seemed a little complicated and hard to use at first, but by the end of the Study Café I think I could say I would be able to use it on my own. We were also introduced to another similar daylight analyzer, not a plugin but a software that had to be downloaded: VELUX Daylight Visualizer 3. A software that was super easy to understand and to use! Plus it was totally free.

It did not take long either to do the analysis. It was a matter of few clicks to locate the model to its given place and you could also add furniture to the spaces to see how it could possibly affect daylight, and voila it was ready. The model had to be done in another software (if I remember correctly), for example Revit, but at least you could modify the model in DV3. The Study Café got me wondering: why this technology is not being used daily in our work!? At least not in the office I work in…(whistle-blower) and none of my groupmates seemed to know the software either. I’m still a little shocked about this, since it’s a free software, super easy to use and really advantageous.

Photo: VELUX daylight visualizer 3.

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Light Matters: Can Light "Cheat" In Simulations?

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Light Matters: Can Light "Cheat" In Simulations?

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What are the limits of simulating light on a screen?

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Light Matters: Can Light “Cheat” In Simulations?

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In recent years the use of CAD and simulation programs has resulted in a new understanding of light in architecture.…

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Interesting thoughts on the role of daylight in Nordic architecture

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Interesting thoughts on the role of daylight in Nordic architecture

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https://www.archdaily.com/542503/light-matters-whiteness-in-nordic-countries

The book referred to in the article is available at Tuni library.. "NORDIC LIGHT: MODERN SCANDINAVIAN ARCHITECTURE"

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Gallery of Light Matters: Whiteness in Nordic Countries - 6

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Image 6 of 6 from gallery of Light Matters: Whiteness in Nordic Countries. Photograph by Henry Plummer 2009

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In today’s study café we went more into the science of designing for daylight. It was interesting – I don’t think most architects go this deep into the topic. Even if I don’t expect to do this myself in my later work, understanding what is behind the rules-of-thumb is useful thing, nonetheless.

We talked about different ways of shading and letting the light in, and how the need differs from country to country. In Finland, the main problem is not enough daylight, while in a more mediterranean country, like Greece the main goal would be shading.

It made me think of my trip to Italy last summer. We went around a few cities during our stay, and the most pleasant time we had was definitely in Bologna. The shadows provided by the city’s lengthy porticoes make a sensible difference – especially when you must leave them to walk across an unshaded sunny city square.

I’m glad we did the measuring ourselves in our own room too. I’m not sure we did not get all the measures right, but overall the numbers showed in more detail what we could see with our eyes. Noticeably less daylight got to the end of the room (and it was more of a rectangular room with one longer side), and I’m sure it would have been better in a squarer one. We also did the measuring in two layers, knee-hight and hip-hight, and there was also a difference there.

I don’t know how to use the daylight simulation of revit yet, so I’m really interested if we will get a close result to our measures next time. There were a small space right in front of the window where the measured lux jumped a lot higher than around – but we measured it twice and got similar results, so I’m hoping we will see that in the Revit model too.

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Since I missed Study Café 2 I didn’t do the exact things that my group mates did. I learned what they did in theory and I hope that is somewhat enough for me to understand and digest the Study Café 2 teachings.

The teachers and my group mates were very patient with all of the questions I had about everything I missed. They told me they were measuring how much daylight got inside the room we were in for the Study Cafés. By using a device (Trotec BF06) that measures daylight and gives the measures in lux numbers. Lux is a measure of light density that equals one lumen per square meter (lm/m2). Lumen is a unit of the perceived power of light that measures the total quantity of visible light emitted by the source (in this case the sun). Sounds pretty heavy to understand I know… But once I understood it, it was easy physics.

One had to be inside and the other outside to measure it properly. By doing so they could calculate how much daylight was available outside and how much light actually got inside from the windows of the room. The measurements were put on a Revit model by using a plug-in. I haven’t personally done that part yet, but I am looking forward to learning that.

I believe measuring daylight is a crucial skill to learn when it comes to sustainability in architecture. My parent’s house, where I lived most of my life, it was very open to daylight. It had lots of windows from three facades. I would like to measure their house for the next Study Café, also for my own personal learning, to truly know how to use that information in reality.

Photo: the Trotec BF06 that was used to measure the daylight.

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This study café took us through the basics of using a modeling software for daylight performance studies. After struggling to install the right add-ons to Revit. I was able to create the DF map of the room RJ117 where we had previously taken in situ measurements.

I would say that an important step that had not been done in the model at this point was to change the orientation of the project using the Manage>Project location>Position>Rotate true North tool in Revit. I rotated the project 26 degrees West. The exact geographical location was also updated using the address of the building and adding it to Manage>Project location>Location.
We should note also that the fixed shading device present on the façade has not been modeled and might false the findings. Nonetheless, I compared the 2 maps and found pretty similar results.

I repeated the exercise with the room I had measured at home. This was so relevant!
I am living in a temporary apartment (we moved from France recently). We choose this apartment online and rented it without seeing it. On paper, it has everything you could ask for but we don’t feel good in this place at all. It is a very recent building and has a running balcony through the whole façade and is located on the 5th floor. The floor plan is very deep and narrow. The measurements revealed that the average DF is 1,2% (modeled, even less with in situ measurements). Well not a surprise at all but still in shock at how bad the results are! In all honestly, we, as users can’t wait to move again and that tells it all about the sustainability potential of this building! This exercise really expressed how daylight matters and how it is currently not addressed properly in housing.

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In preparation to this study café I completed the daylight measuring task at home and prepared the data visually using Revit, which already gave me some very interesting results and showed me for example that the largest window in my flat does not actually bring in as much daylight as I thought, since it is overshadowed by a balcony. Realizing this made me think of how I previously have used elements that shade windows without understanding the amount of impact such a thing has, but when you see the result visually it becomes very clear.

During the Study Café it was very cool to see everybody’s results of their daylight measurements as they were very different to each other and also to compare our specific work methods of a) capturing the data and b) preparing the data.

I took the approach to use Revit and used the integrated scripting tool Dynamo to write code which create a colored map which represents the measured daylight factor, while other where thinking about using a more analogue approach of creating this color map themselves.

It was also interesting to then compare the actual measured data to some simulated data using the Revit Light Analysis tool and then start tweaking things in the simulation to test how that would affect the daylight in the room. Furthermore it was good to get to learn about different analysis/ simulation tools outside of Revit such as the standalone tool by Velux.

After this session I am now looking forward to the next session to use the integrated daylight simulation of Enscape to interactively test out the different design approaches which were introduced to us last session, in real-time and in VR and compare them to each other.

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While I unfortunately missed the first Study Café Session and so the introduction to the topic, I still was excited to learn about the different techniques of how a space can be light with daylight, what different methods can be used and how we can simulate and measure daylight for our designs.
So, I was very happy to see that we got a detailed introduction to the different methods of bringing light into spaces and also how spaces can be shaded in this second study café.
While I was already familiar with some of these methods that were introduced such as sidelighting and corelighting as I have used them plenty of time in my previous designs and also during my internship (the office I worked for used internal courtyards a lot), I also got further knowledge about toplighting which had certain sub-categories that I was not yet familiar such as light funnels/tunnels.

After this theoretical introduction it was a great opportunity to then be able to learn how to measure daylight and the daylight factor in a room and also do this measuring activity in university and also in our own home. Especially from measuring the daylight factor at home taught me a lot about my own space that I spend a lot of time in. Also, I want to noted that understanding the caveats of such an experimental setup, such as knowing how the results can be very different when done in the wrong way or when done under different circumstances, was very useful.

Overall, I took away a lot from my first session in this Study Café which I now can already consider in my future design projects and I am looking forward to using the coming experiments and daylight simulations in VR to test out the methods introduced this session.

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RJ117 - Rendering - DF at 800mm Side View

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The project that I chose as a good Daylight case study in the project Kipparintalo in Helsinki by the Finnish architect Juha Leiviska. I found this project as Leiviskä won the 2020 Daylight Award of the Velux Foundation.

The project is a block of flats situated on a wedge shape plot in a residential area of Helsinki. The form of the plot has been used to stagger the south-facing façade with small balconies diagonally which one the one hand give all residents a view towards the waterfront nearby but also creates a lot of space for windows which bring in light from multiple directions of the room. This approach complies with a lot of the rules that we have learned and there is actually not really anything I would improve here as I am rather impressed by this clever solution of a difficult site. It would be interesting to see how this approach could be used in other projects.

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I watched Sofies an Rauls lectures about the use of daylight. Those were the best minutes used in this semester. I learned a lot about use of daylight, light shafts, reflectors, materials, diagonal connections, windows and skylights.

We took a look of the revit online daylight calculator and Velux daylight calculator. The Velux calculator was a lot faster but it also had to use Revit model and a separate application. I think I will have to make use of this tools later. I have only used Rhinoceros+Grasshopper method making solar calculations. And in that case it was not even daylight calculation but about direct sunlight.

So to get up to speed of this courses materials I should learn a now method of making solar analysis.  I did try to use Revit for a bit but I have not ever used it because I have only used Archicad for seriour architecture stuff. Revit is the thing I would like to learn but in this courses own timeframe I think I cannot learn it that well.

What is most important for me: learn a suitable method to make proper daylight analysis! Learn about use of skylights and windows and reflective surfaces to maximize good lightning conditions inside! It is beneficial to know about building products and even using unusual methods to make great architecture happen. Having those wild ideas in the back of our heads helps coming up with new doable ideas later on.

We did the daylight analysis and got the graph done. From this idea I thought it might be beneficial to make daylight analysis of an old house that I'm renovating. It might be best option because the results are better compared to the predictions made by simulations.

Picture: Famous arhitect Erik Bryggmanns (rival of Alvar Aalto) Apartment building in Turku (Läntinen rantakatu) from 1950´s. He used to tilt the balconies and apartment facades southwards to maximize sunlinght. Also note that apartment floors and balcony floors next to each other are not in the same level.

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The manual work of making the daylight measurements was an opportunity to learn something new once again. That is something I could imagine I will have to do in the future. Also predicting the lightning conditions with cad simulators is definitely something I will have to put into my personal tool case.

In my own designs the two most important things i imagine will occur are use of daylight and access to nature. My artistic dream is building a family house with south-facing windows so big and actually having the authentic nature so close to the window that you almost feel like you want to touch the moss and the trees.

Use of daylight when maximized does keep people awake and help them restore and get better faster when not in good condition. Contrary: when minimizing the daylight we can add drama to spaces and paint some objects with light or then just make spaces that are not ideal to live in.

Placing of windows is important. Usually we place windows on the eye-level in average. Which is good. If the window is made bigger it usually is extended downwards. Maybe better solutions would be extending the window openings upwards as high as possible. That would anable daylight from the sky to penetrate deeper into the space.

In the picture: Vyborg (Viipuri) Library designed by Alvar Aalto. Typical and well appreciated library lightning. Some kind of light shafts. Also the lower level is typical.

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Picture: YUUA's Tokyo House, creative use of daylight in Japanese narrow house

Use of daylight is super important in architecture. Daylight makes such a big difference in our lives. The subject rises in other courses as well but in this Sustainable architecture course these is finally time to go deeper into it.

When concidering what is good architecture and looking a pioneers of Nordic architecture, use of daylight is often brought up. Bringing some of the outside to inside is done by inviting some daylight in and painting some parts of objects with the natural light.

The human aspect of user interacting with the build environment cannot be emphasized enough. We must design for people using the built environment. We must get into their shoes and envision a perfect environment for their needs. Often what is concidered as good architecture is just shiny things. Beautiful curves, big windows and high sealings. They help to produce awesome pictures and help to gain more attention but might not help human to feel good in the long term. I'm so happy we have Sofie Pelsmakers in our studies to educate about the empathy part.

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Daylight has been an important topic that has been brought up in many courses and lectures for the past couple of years. Especially in the courses of Dalia and Sofie. I feel like the more I know about it the more it gets crucial in the designing process. It’s importance in architecture, sustainability and human lives can’t be emphasized enough. Still I felt like I knew very little about it and that was the main reason why I chose this Studio Café. VR a was the other (more exciting) reason.

I was very pleased to meet the teachers, I found their personal approach to daylight and VR very interesting and inspiring. On the first Studio we discussed very shortly the opportunities of VR and all the other versions of it (AR, XR, MR), and how we could use them as tools to design better daylight in architecture. The material we had to read and the lectures we had to watch personally prepared me well for the first Studio Café. Rauls lecture on daylight was my favorite! His seven ‘’rules of thumb’’ in daylight were very eye opening and the visual explanations helped me understand the ‘’principles’’ when designing better and more sustainable architecture with daylight.

I lost the sense of time completely and the hours went by in a blink of an eye… The first studio left me craving for more knowledge and information about everything we discussed and I already started visioning everything I could do in future with all the things that I’ll learn in this Studio Café. I hope the teachers have enough time to teach us more and show us the ‘’how to’’ with the software’s, I think five Studios isn’t quite enough for such an important topic.

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A cell at U.S. Penitentiary, Thomson in Illinois./ U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois

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Reflection on Daylight 1

(just copied the same message because i appeared as anonymous)

This introduction on daylight and sunlight made me reflect on a few points. First, I was really interested to learn the effect of natural light on health and mental health, especially on a scientific level. It made me think about how in old prisons, there would be little to no light in the cells, which has probably led to prisoners being less mentally stable because of that. It also made me think of how optimal daylight conditions can help patients heal better and faster. It also made me think about seasonal depression, and how it is partially linked to the power of daylight; it can also explain the high rate of depression of Finland despite being called “the happiest country in the world”

I would be interested in seeing how artificial light can complement daylight in certain spaces, especially those that cannot be renovated. In Paris, a lot of building are historical, and sometimes daylighting conditions in apartments are not the best; therefore it would be interesting to see how these apartments could be nicely complemented by the addition of certain artificial lights.

It also reminded me of a movie I’ve seen which plays with the lighting effects for the story-telling. In the movie Parasite, the architecture and urbanism turn around the idea of verticality. The highest spaces are linked with the high social class, and the spaces which are positioned lower are linked to the low class. This idea is brought out by how the light is being played in the movie: the spaces where the rich family lives is exposed to a bright daylight, while the spaces where the poor family lives is mainly lightened by artificial light; very few daylight actually comes into their home.

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I've never enjoyed staying too long in libraries, but I wouldn't mind reading a thousand books here... The Exeter library in New Hampshire is an example when it comes to daylight. Wide, tall windows and roof atrium makes daylight a big part of the interior. To me, a building is well-designed when you genuinely enjoy being inside.

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Daylight has been an important topic that has been brought up in many courses and lectures for the past couple of years. Especially in the courses of Dalia and Sofie. I feel like the more I know about it the more it gets crucial in the designing process. It’s importance in architecture, sustainability and human lives can’t be emphasized enough. Still I felt like I knew very little about it and that was the main reason why I chose this Studio Café. VR a was the other (more exciting) reason.

I was very pleased to meet the teachers, I found their personal approach to daylight and VR very interesting and inspiring. On the first Studio we discussed very shortly the opportunities of VR and all the other versions of it (AR, XR, MR), and how we could use them as tools to design better daylight in architecture. The material we had to read and the lectures we had to watch personally prepared me well for the first Studio Café. Rauls lecture on daylight was my favorite! His seven ‘’rules of thumb’’ in daylight were very eye opening and the visual explanations helped me understand the ‘’principles’’ when designing better and more sustainable architecture with daylight.

I lost the sense of time completely and the hours went by in a blink of an eye… The first studio left me craving for more knowledge and information about everything we discussed and I already started visioning everything I could do in future with all the things that I’ll learn in this Studio Café. I hope the teachers have enough time to teach us more and show us the ‘’how to’’ with the software’s, I think five Studios isn’t quite enough for such an important topic.

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Walking around in Vietnam we can come across these long houses with very narrow facades, the traditional Tube Houses. These plots pose a challenge to architects to get daylight and natural ventillation into these homes.
The VY ANH House by Khuon Studio proposes an answer to this problem by cutting away some space from the upper floors and making a curved facade that lets daylight reach deeper into the narrow building.
Closer to the other side over the stairs they used a wide skylight, letting in light that through the openings in the floor slabs reaches down even to the ground level.
Throughout the building they used high ceilings for a better distribution of natural light and avoiding the small space to feel cramped.
The louver system that covers the glass facades provides shading and privacy, and should be covered in greenery according to the plans. This choice may not be the best as it could greatly reduce the amount of daylight that gets in the narrow building. The system is also fix and unmovable, not giving the option to customize it to the time of day/year/the activity that goes on behind it.

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This space achieves great integration with the external area, without compromising treatment of natural lighting, and cross ventilation in all environment. The project features sliding panels made of rwooden lattices as a means of controlling solar radiation in the interior areas according to the needs of the residents. The roof which go futher than the pannel also helps stopping the sunlight from penetrating the house too much.

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In this residence, they created large eaves and balconies to protect the upper floor from excessive solar radiation ensuring greater visual comfort in the interior spaces. The first floor, on the other hand, was designed as an open and integrated space, in which the entrance operates as a transition between interior and exterior, emphasized by the presence of natural light provided by a pergola . Maybe the system would be even better if the protection system were not fixed and could be adapted to the sunlight conditions of the moment.

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The past session and the daylight measurements made me realise the not only the importance of the horizontal placement of the window, but also its vertical placement. I didn’t think there would be such a difference of daylight at the same point on the ground, but at a different vertical level. This made me think how tall or small people, even children and adults, can actually have different perceptions of the daylight in the room; while one could be comfortable, the other might be uneasy in the same daylight position. This would be things to take into account while building public spaces. Also, the difference can be perceived according to you position (whether you’re seating, standing or lying down) and where your furniture is placed. I would love to know more about how reflective surfaces and materials can help the light bounce back.

I also realised how much daylight intensity can actually change very quickly without us even realizing it, especially when the light is diffuse like in Finland. I would be interested to see how diffuse light -with different intensities- affects moods, as well as harsh light. There’s the stereotype that’s going around about how people in warmer countries have more of a “warm and inviting” personality compared to people living in colder climate, it would be interesting to see if this has to do with daylighting in a way, since sunlight in cold countries is usually more diffuse and less harsh than in warmer country.

The project in the photo is called Domestic Astronomy by Philippe Rahm, in which he placed the main furniture of different house pieces at different altitudes, according to their theoretical ideal temperature. It would be really interesting to see how would this room look if this this concept was applied to daylight.

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In winter, I would say there is still a need for curtains or shades as the sun can be too much even then, but it otherwise is very effective. In these types of houses the windows are all on the South façade and the North façade is usually blind (or very small windows just for ventilations)

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Mas, an old stone house in the South of France

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Mas, an old stone house in the South of France

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This is another ex. of good daylight in Housing. This is an old Mas which is a stone house in the South of France. The Windows there are quite narrow but high. The high summer sun doesn’t get in but low winter sun does!

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How to keep a 6 year old busy on a sick day (OR how to avoid doing the annoying part of the HW) :D
=picture of the daylight measurements taken at home

Various techniques allow the supply and variation of daylight in architecture: side lighting, top lighting, core lighting. To control it, these often go in pair with shading systems, either internal or external systems.

But to assess the actual daylight performance in buildings, modeling or measurements are necessary. This study café focused on daylight measurements.
Firstly, we learned that illuminance is the amount of light received on the surface. It is expressed in lux (lm/m2) and measured with a luxmeter.
The daylight factor (DF) is a daylight availability metric that expresses as a percentage the amount of daylight available inside a room (on a work plane) compared to the amount of unobstructed daylight available outside under overcast sky conditions (Hopkins, 1963).

To proceed to the measurements and later the creation of a DF map, we followed the following step (overcast weather):
-leaving a 0,5m border from the walls around the perimeter
-place measuring points every 0,5 or 1m creating a measurement grid
-take measurements at a fixed height: work plane at 1m above the ground for ex, for every point on the grid simultaneously inside and outside. The outside measurement can be taken anywhere, at any height but needs to be unobstructed.
-DF at a point is then calculated = (Illuminance inside/Illuminance outside) x100 for every point on the grid
-A map is drawn out using a contour line method (or any method of choice). I plan to test out different method to create this map as efficiently as possible as I will probably have to do many for my research project.

We proceeded to this exercise in class and then in a room at home. We will, in a next step, compare these measurements with results obtained with a model.

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And inside the apartment

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This is the facade

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This is my ex. of good daylight. It is a building in Tampere nicknamed Kiinanmuuri (The Great Wall Of China). You can find it here: https://goo.gl/maps/fu9hJ7pSXaDeUW6q7

This is an exceptionally peaceful place very close to the city center. Many rules of thumb at the urban planning scale (and building) are met, such as:

·        Spacing of building related to height. The buildings are 4 floors high and there is always a lot of space on each side (minimum of the building’s height).

·        Orienting facades towards the sun. Small staircases serve 2 apartments for each floor which enables the apartments to have openings on 2 orientations and by consequence to always have a chance to be oriented towards the sun.

·        Urban breaks

The large yard acts as an urban break which provides a lot of open space to allow sunlight to enter the buildings.

·        Shallow building design

Although each apartment has access to sunlight from 2 orientations, the depth of each apartment is very reasonable which allows for the spaces in the core of the building to still have sufficient daylight.

Originally, the apartments all had a separation between the 2 orientations. The kitchen was on one side and the living room on the other. With time, a lot of them have taken down this separation to allow the living space to get light from both directions.

Although overall the implantation and orientation allow for very good daylight, the openings are still relatively small. One improvement could be to create double glazed sliding doors in the living room (from the floor up) to allow even more light in that space. (This might then require better shading to avoid overheating in the summer)

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Usually we know about the importance of daylight in design, but we don’t really go deeper into the topic. The first study café session opened up my eyes to a lot of things I did not really consider before. I would think about the orientation of the building facades, the living rooms or bedrooms, but I never thought of the size or especially the placement of the windows as that important. We can easily fall into the mistake of designing the windows only based on what we want the facades to look like while only meeting the minimal requirements inside. For example, putting the window in the edge of the room because of their rhythm from the outside, giving the inside a lot less light than if we would have placed it in the middle. We know balconies are good to have, but don’t consider how they affect the lighting of the rooms behind them.

There are also much more to the question of lighting then if a room has windows or not. When is there too much light, how much do the glass surfaces rise the energy costs, glares, etc. Different functions also require different lighting conditions, a big glass curtain wall may not be the best answer to every question.

Coming from a university were we study from books published 50 years ago and examples that could not be built now because of today’s requirements, I’m really excited about the technical parts of this study café. Using new technology and implementing it in the designing process is really useful, and I am also just really interested in the shared fields of architecture and informatics, so I can not wait to learn more in this topic. Using virtual and augmented reality is really exciting and I hope to gain new knowledge and skills that I can continue using later.

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As a project architect with 10 years of experience, daylight design in general but specifically with VR (and all that is related) is something I know very little about (crazy!). After this first café, I am already so glad to be here. First of all, thought by 2 women!!! Already major thumbs up for that. In the office I worked in for 9 years, only male bosses and only them were ever in charge of BIM related things (and attending conferences and gaining more knowledge about it). But anyways, that was a side note!

I don’t know if it’s because I had my eyes closed and was working with what I already know but I had no idea that extended reality was already and will rapidly be more present in our lives and in architecture and design. The introduction to vocabulary related to this was crucial and very informative. I guess in everyday life, we have all heard of VR, without actually knowing what it means and its limits. It is now very clear that Extended Reality (XR, as all real and virtual combined environments) in fact contains different forms: Mixed Reality (MR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). They differ by the device that hosts them and the form of interaction it has with the user.  I have used Revit and Enscape for many years and I can’t wait to discover these new tools. I’m also eager to see how daylight measurements can be used in parallel to modelling for analyzing and designing.

For my own project, I will be concentrating on balconies but also its impact on the interior spaces. I hope to familiarize myself enough with the tools and methods to be able to apply this to my own work. The context of Finland with its very short winter days and long summer days gives a particularly interesting context to do these type of studies which I’m eager to study.

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A cell at U.S. Penitentiary, Thomson in Illinois./ U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois

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This introduction on daylight and sunlight made me reflect on a few points. First, I was really interested to learn the effect of natural light on health and mental health, especially on a scientific level. It made me think about how in old prisons, there would be little to no light in the cells, which has probably led to prisoners being less mentally stable because of that. It also made me think of how optimal daylight conditions can help patients heal better and faster. It also made me think about seasonal depression, and how it is partially linked to the power of daylight; it can also explain the high rate of depression of Finland despite being called “the happiest country in the world”

I would be interested in seeing how artificial light can complement daylight in certain spaces, especially those that cannot be renovated. In Paris, a lot of building are historical, and sometimes daylighting conditions in apartments are not the best; therefore it would be interesting to see how these apartments could be nicely complemented by the addition of certain artificial lights.

It also reminded me of a movie I’ve seen which plays with the lighting effects for the story-telling. In the movie Parasite, the architecture and urbanism turn around the idea of verticality. The highest spaces are linked with the high social class, and the spaces which are positioned lower are linked to the low class. This idea is brought out by how the light is being played in the movie: the spaces where the rich family lives is exposed to a bright daylight, while the spaces where the poor family lives is mainly lightened by artificial light; very few daylight actually comes into their home.

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Hi there, and welcome to Daylight Matters!

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Hi there, and welcome to Daylight Matters!

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On this Padlet we will be continuing our discussion and you will be sharing your ideas, impressions, images, as well as your weekly contribution of 300 words.