Student Work

A project by Mohamad Hadla.

Student Work

February 2012

We are investigating various modeling techniques to see how they help us to make design decisions with daylight. We're comparing physical models photographed in daylight and under studio lighting and using digital means to locate human figures in spaces and scaled materials on surfaces while retaining the effects of light. We are also comparing these with digitally rendered views of the same spaces. Daylight is almost always more satisfying, more convincing, but digital renderings are seductive in their artificial perfection. Using both physical and digital models, is probably the most way to work. But we'd still like to know how close a digital view can approximate daylight.

See above for work by Erin Curley. Digitally enhanced view of a physical model of an interior space at the top and a digitally enhanced view of a courtyard at the bottom.

Memory 4.0 Color

We always know where daylight has been. It originates at the sun of course, but also we know about its passage through the sky and if it has touched the landscape, another building, a surface, a material with particular colors or finishes, by its color, direction, and intensity.

The blue sky is the result of the scattering of sunlight in the earth’s atmosphere. Atoms of the gases present in the atmosphere (oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc.), water vapor, and dust, combine to absorb light in ranges other than blue; the blue is reflected to our eyes. This sometimes results in the presence of blue tones in shadows cast on white walls on days of full blue skies. Moisture in the air results in overcast conditions and diffuses sunlight into cold, white light and gray sky; we associate gray and white skies with cool weather and have come to term white, gray, and blue as cool colors, associating color and temperature. Daylight, early and late in the day, travels through more of the earth’s atmosphere, through more dirt and dust particles, reflecting yellow, orange and red light to us. These hues, the colors of fire and of hot, dry climates, have come to be called warm colors.

Light and architecture can employ these strategies with startling effect. At Hans Hollein’s Museum of Modern Art (Frankfort, Germany; 1991) daylight entering a gallery through tall windows on opposite sides of a narrow portion of the building touches large wall surfaces painted dark green and deep orange. The colors are reflected subtly onto white wall surfaces visible around a stair. More directly, in buildings by the Mexican architects Luis Barragan and, later, Ricardo Legoretta, hot, tropical colors are used in remarkably unlikely combinations. The bright blues, hot pinks, yellow and red tones stun the eyes; in the hot sun of Mexican or of tropical climates, the colors may be bleached by the sun. Still, the warm colors appear to amplify the sizzle associated with the heat.

Memory 3.0 Living on the Edge

Window seats and bay windows are, by definition, located in exterior walls and are therefore edge places. They permit us to occupy the bounding edge of a space, which is unusual. But in itself, the window seat is a space, centered on the individual, with its own warmth and daylight that give an edge the qualities of a center. They work best in the traditional architecture of thick, masonry walls, such as at Turku Castle (Turku, Finland, 13^th through 16^th centuries) where the heat that comes with sunlight can be stored in thick walls to make a warm place, often at a cold exterior edge. Sunlight on the surfaces of the space signals the likely presence of warmth. The combination of protection in a cozy, warm space, right next to the cold outside, is one of those memorable associations, heightened of course, by the unlikelihood of it all. We are lent the impression that we have some control over our environment. The intimacy of the window seat, in a place that is precarious (at a glazed portion of a wall), but with a commanding view of external challenges is reminiscent of other great views: from steep hillsides, the tops of towers, the railings of bridges, and the ends piers, all of which permit us to hover above the world, in mid-air, which is to say, in mid-daylight. When these places are also comfortable, it creates an almost unbeatable combination of familiar and soothing associations with surprising visual challenges.

Memory 2.0 Seeing is believing

The recall or sight of an experience in light frequently triggers a tactile association with the warmth or coolness of that place in the same way that a phrase in conversation may bring to mind a snippet of melody that accompanies that phrase in a song. With this awareness, the designer can reinforce expectations based on our past experiences or challenge our preconceptions to establish new associations tethered to a singular place in the world.

There is something indelible about discovering light at the center of a space or a structure. Perhaps this is because light has to penetrate architecture, roofs, and walls, to find its way to the center. Daylight is familiar, but we are accustomed to finding it outside or at the edges of built spaces. The sun, the origin of all light and heat and the center of our solar system, is the prime example of the importance and pleasure we take at finding light and heat at the middle of things. This is replicated at the campfire, a display of light and heat that invites us to gather and recognize each other; it represents security in the enveloping darkness. We find the same power at the hearth, a fireplace, characterized by flickering light and radiant heat, around which we are invited to gather. The location of light, the sense of heat, and the cracking sounds of fire invite us to gather and make a center. Light at the center is also powerful because properly designed spaces typically invite people to fully occupy a space, and not just lurk at the edges. Light invites us to participate. It can be difficult to provide daylight at the heart of a space but, for this reason, it can be the element that reminds the designer to make inhabitable spaces.

Discovering significant light or space inside or at the middle tinkers with our expectations. Just as we commonly see light originating at the edges of a space, our parallel expectation is that centers will be darker and more solid, permanent, and fixed. This expectation is repudiated in the structure of Fay Jones’ Thorncrown Chapel (Eureka Springs, Arkansas; 1980) where, at the very center of the diagonal cross bracing we would expect to see a solid connection between braces, there appears a trapezoid of space, an opening for light. This detail is representative of the chapel, fully glazed between wood supporting members on all sides, and with light occupying the center.

Memory 1.0 Seeing is believing.

Daylight remembers where it has been; it always arrives with company.  It reaches us most evidently accompanied by heat and color, which derive from its source, the sun, and from surfaces it has touched on the way to our eyes.  We can see and feel heat and color quite easily and both are capable of influencing our perceptions and our use of space.  Daylight levels and character, including color and motion, often signal to us what the temperature of a place is before we are close enough to feel heat or cold.  It has been noted that sight may be considered an extension of our sense of touch, enabling us to understand, at some distance from them, how things feel.  The understanding is based on our knowledge of having seen and touched these things before.  In this way, daylight messages engage our individual memories.  What we see and what we know about light leads us to anticipate the character of a space or a surface and to draw associations with other times and places.  Associations between light, its source, and events on the way tour eyes stimulate our own deeply held associations.

Stair at the Art Institute of Chicago

Click on this photo for a much better rendering of shadow, detail, and color.