Research Design Connection: Natural Light and Health

Boubekri and colleagues make a health-based case for designing access to natural light into structures. As they report, “daylight…is vital to our lives…impacting circadian rhythm and…producing vitamin D through our skin…buildings play a significant role in controlling how much daylight people are exposed to…Zoning regulations ought to be concerned with the fact that without sufficient daylight in the street, it is not possible to have sufficient daylight inside our buildings…Urban design and urban zoning legislation are as important as the building itself…Building designers and developers need to provide architectural solutions that give building users the opportunity to access unfiltered sunlight by providing balconies and terraces without having to leave the buildings. Only direct contact of the skin with the sun produces the vitamin D levels that we need on a daily basis.”

Mohamed Boubekri, Nastaran Shishegar, and Thulasi Khamma. 2017. “Sustainability with Health in Mind: A Case for Daylighting.” International Journal of the Constructed Environment, vol. 8, no. 2, no pagination, DOI: 10.18848/2154-8587/CGP/v08i02/1-13

Sally Augustin, PhD,a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.