Daylight thinking

Discussion about lighting

As can be seen in the technical reports, daylight can be quantified, allowing to know the light incident on a surface. To calculate the luminance, the amount of light that we perceive, we just need a luminous flux and the qualities of the materials on which the light falls.

At first, we could limit the study of daylight to its quantification by determining the amount of lux incident on a surface. However, the variability of sunlight produces a mutable perception of architecture that evokes the light quality more than quantity. At this point, daylight stops being a prosaic resource of scientific researches to become an element that generates the variable perception of architecture.

This poetic interpretation of light is observed in the experiments conducted in the summer courses at the University of Florida, where using scale models and through the simulation of daylight, students reproduce the interaction between space and light, causing ever changing perception.

After rereading the Daylighting of Hopkinson et al. (Technical Manual, indispensable for the study of daylight) and watch the video developed by the summer course Daylight Thinking 2012, I keep thinking in the two study approaches in daylight, Is it an element that we must quantify? Or on the other hand is only the means to create the perception of architecture?

In my humble opinion, I consider that more than two juxtaposed approaches, quantification of light, needed to determine visual comfort, is complementary with the poetic study of light, as I think that the sensivity of beauty is so important as a correct perception.