Daylighting

Daylight connects us with the outdoors, provides an essential nutrient, and makes our interior spaces glow with natural beauty. Exposure to bright daylight, even indoors, has been shown to relieve sleep disorders and may contribute to general health and well-being, decreasing absenteeism at both work and school.

Yet daylighting can go awry, resulting in glare, overheating, and loss of productivity. These resources shed light on the benefits of daylighting as well as strategies for doing it right.

Daylighting

Deep Dives

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  • Doing Daylighting Right

    Feature Article

    Harvesting daylight is a popular way to save energy and promote productivity. But getting it wrong is all too easy-and can have the opposite effects.

  • Rethinking the All-Glass Building

    Feature Article

    Is it time to end our love affair with the all-glass building? A lot of proponents of high-performance, green design certainly think so-while other respected architects, including some leading green designers and energy experts, argue that all-glass can work well if done right.

  • Controls Go Wireless

    Feature Article

    Particularly for lighting and ventilation controls in retrofit situations wireless systems offer potential energy, money, and resource savings. The technology is still new, however, and potential drawbacks like health risks, interference, and even the potential for increased energy consumption need to be examined.

  • Historic Preservation and Green Building: A Lasting Relationship

    Feature Article

    Rehabilitation of existing buildings is important to sustainability in buildings, but with historic buildings, green building and preservationism can diverge. With attention to preservation standards and suitable application of green strategies, however, those agendas can be aligned.

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Product Guidance

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  • Greenest Greenbuild Products for the Indoor Environment and More

    Product Review

    We look at products that improve indoor environmental quality and check in on advances from previous Top 10 winners.

  • The First Practical Heliostat

    Product Review

    Practical Solar has introduced a simple heliostat system to reflect sunlight into buildings for lighting and space heating; future applications will include water heating and electricity generation.

  • The First Practical Heliostat

    Product Review

    Practical Solar has introduced a simple heliostat system to reflect sunlight into buildings for lighting and space heating; future applications will include water heating and electricity generation.

  • Sealed Blinds from Unicel Offer Flexibility, Low Maintenance

    Product Review

    Vision Control sealed interpane louvers, available with any type of glazing, offer numerous benefits, including energy savings and reduced maintenance compared with other blinds.

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Learning Resources

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  • Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability: A Guide for Architects

    Spotlight Report

    A report providing architects guidance on how to design sustainable lighting that supports health and wellness while reducing energy use.

  • In-House Daylight Modeling: Three Firms Share How They Do It

    Webcast

    Getting consistent results when your artistic medium is the sun and sky can be one of the best design tricks to have up your sleeve—but it's also one of the most difficult to pull off. Is that window bringing in daylight or causing intolerable glare? Do you really know? The three panelists will show how they have used simulation to determine the difference, with overviews of daylighting, glare, and several case studies.

Just For Fun

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