Design Tip: Harvesting Daylight
Here’s a design tip that attends to our responsibility to the environment and is in general, a good thing to know when designing a room. It’s called harvesting daylight. Basically, it means using this natural resource as much as you can so that you rely less on the electrical version. Of course, at night the sun is usually unavailable. So a proper lighting design is essential. But, is your room so dark that you need the lights on during the day? How can you alter a design so that you make the most of the sunlight in the room?
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. In the first picture, the room is dark and dreary. The lights have to be turned on all day because the sunlight never reaches the center of the room. Why? Because everything is dark, there’s nothing reflective for the sun to bounce off. The walls, the carpet and the furniture are all dark, flat colors. The sunlight is absorbed by that forest green and the bare paneling, making the room seem even darker than it is. Can you believe this house is at the beach?
Look how much lighter the room is now. This was accomplished by painting the walls a pastel blue in a satin finish, and covering the floor in a light colored carpet. The colors reflect the light, but cuts on glare that white would have created. The slight sheen of the paint gives some added reflectivity. So, instead of being absorbed, the sunlight bounces off the various surfaces and reflects the light throughout the room. The light toned furniture takes on more importance in a small room. Now the space is bright and cheerful and need not rely on artificial light during the day.
So, if you’ve got a problem with a dark, drab room don’t run out for more lamps. Instead, think about what you might do to make the more of the natural light you’ve already got.
