Siobhan Rockcastle and Marilyne Andersen featured in Phoenix Magazine
© 2015 EPFL
Phoenix, an architectural magazin by B + L Verlags, has featured the research of Siobhan Rockcastle and Marilyne Andersen in its inaugural issue. Published in mid-February, this publication is the first German translation of their work on daylight dynamics. Through a brief analysis of three contemporary architectural spaces, Siobhan and Marilyne introduce the context for an application of their scientific research in daylight performance.
Architects are trained to place value in the concept of spatial experience and yet heightened environmental awareness has forced designers to meet both functional, aesthetic, and simultaneously ‘high-performance’ quantitative targets. We hear a lot about the importance of net energy balance, thermal and visual comfort, and carbon neutral design, but as these requirements become more pervasive in professional practice and the justification of design quality, we may ask ourselves: how do we prioritize these technical criteria and how should they drive the design process? Somewhere along the line, perceptual qualities of illumination became secondary in our dialogue about daylight performance and this schism between criteria: illumination-based (i.e. do we have enough light to perform a visual task?), comfort (i.e. do we feel a lack of discomfort in these luminous conditions?), and aesthetic (i.e. do we like the composition of these luminous conditions?), causes a dilemma for lighting designers. Architectural lighting must ‘perform’ to meet both illumination, comfort, and aesthetic criteria and we must work to re-establish the role of perceptual indicators in our language about environmental performance.