Exploration of the phenomenon of looking at the sky through a skylight window

The study thus demonstrated that the phenomenon of looking at the sky, through skylights, is a desirable visual and cognitive process, as a result of our intrinsic, predictable and perceptive grasp of natural phenomena of skylight and daylight. The human fascination with the sky was also studied, which resulted in people generally finding skylights desirable because they want to look at the sky and be in touch with nature. The dynamic view to the sky and clouds was perceived as the most desirable, both by people who have a skylight window in their home, as well as people who do not. Finally, drawing on the earlier findings and literature, the research concluded that the phenomenon of looking at the sky showcases a range of meanings. The skylight window was evaluated as a restorative device that instills the feeling of wandering away in home dwellers – unique to this particular experience.

2 ABSTRACT

First, the concept of intrinsic desire for the sky has been introduced, Then, a literature review on prediction follows, showing how this links to the human cognitive processes of our physiological experience. The next section of the literature review is a study on human sensorial perception, which is linked to sky windows and views. Lastly, the investigation on the phenomenon of looking at the sky through skylight windows is realized through a qualitative study with reference to a case study, as well as to participants’ subjective experience of the phenomenon. Mind wandering was encouraged through an exploratory questionnaire and used as a facilitator of intentional interaction with the sky. Consequently, new meaning around the phenomenon has been brought up.

A need has been found to define what is desirable about skylight windows, with a focus on investigating the perceptual aspects of the phenomenon of looking at the sky. This knowledge adds to the larger body of works around window views and their impacts onto people – which often times rather focuses on the physical world, and not on the living world.

3 Contents Abstract 1. Introduction 4 Conceptual framework 7 Background 9 Methodology 11 2. Literature review 14 The predictive experience 16 The evolving human vision and the energetic eye Rhythms of the sky Dynamic elements of the sky Cognitive processes and the sky The perceptive experience 24 Skylights — visual confluence between outside and inside Changing elements of the sky The fascinating sky view Perceived restorative quality of the sky 3. Survey 32 Case study 34 ObservationsOverview Questionnaire 38 Key Reflectionsfindings Interview 45 ReflectionsAnalysisMethod 4. Discussion 54 5. Conclusion 56 FiguresBibliography

1. Introduction Figure 1. Rendered image of looking at the sky through a skylight window (self-produced)

Conway 1 states in his paper, “Skychology – an interpretative phenomenological analysis of looking up at the sky”, that research has neglected intentional interactions with the sky. Many people regard looking up at the sky to be a mundane activity. We do it all the time, often without even realizing it. The sky is always on unrestrained by geography or urbanisation and accessible to almost everyone (Conway, p.4).

1 Paul Conway is a coaching psychologist and creator of the evidence-based positive psychology intervention called skychology – a methodology which teaches on how to experience everyday wellbeing with something as simple as looking at the sky

Since professor Roger Ulrich first identified the restorative health benefits of viewing nature for postoperative patients (1984), an abundance of studies has found links between nature involvement, improved physical health, and psychological wellbeing, including higher levels of

Several studies have shown that daylight is well-appreciated within homes, as William Lam highlights in “Sunlighting as Formgiver for Architecture”, dating back to 1986. However, it is demonstrated that people’s interactions with natural light, their thoughts, feelings, and particular behaviors have far been overlooked in favor of achieving physical lighting requirements (Hauge, Paulp.4).

“In our time, light has turned into a mere quantitative matter and the window has lost its significance as a mediator between two worlds, between enclosed and open, interiority and exteriority, private and public, shadow and light.” (Pallasmaa, p.51)

Harnessing the interaction between human and the sky becomes important in light of increasing global urbanization and the destruction of contact with nature. A substantial amount of research demonstrates that engaging with nature has a good influence on physical and psychological wellbeing (Ulrich, Heschong, Hauge). Viewing the sky and other natural features of the world can support psychological restoration, thus sustaining health and wellbeing (Kaplan, 2001).

Everyday experience tells us that windows are generally desirable features in buildings (Veitch, Christoffersen, Galasiu). Since some of their main functions is to permit access to daylight and viewing the sky, roof windows play a strong factor in mediating between enclosed and open, man and nature. This balancing effort between the internal and external worlds is a constant motif in our daily lives. We try to choose and regulate our circumstances so that we have exactly the appropriate amount of stimulation versus distraction, engagement versus detachment.

6 life satisfaction, attention, positive affect and lower levels of stress and anxiety.

By investigating what is desirable for people in the experience of looking up at the sky through skylight windows, intentionally and on a perceptual level, this study aims to provide valuable knowledge to the current body of research around window views and impact on human vision and wellbeing.

Research question When people look up at the sky, what do they experience? What function and potential do skylight windows have in the experience of wellbeing?

As stated before, humans have a natural yearning to be in touch with nature and natural phenomena, such as daylight and skylight (Hauge). Thus, their urge for a look out can be explained by the desire for meaningful stimulation, but further exploration of desire for skylight views could provide necessary details around the effects they have on people’s wellbeing, which can then be transformed into generational desire for the phenomenon. Our collective experience is that skylight windows are desirable, but only in recent years has science begun to explain why. A recent literature study recognizes that people’s desire for daylight generally depends on how building openings affect the appearance of the space; it also depends on the function of the space and on each individual’s cultural norms about privacy, enclosure and view (Veitch, Christoffersen, Galasiu, p.1).

If we look at how daylighting has been evaluated in recent years and decades, there have been many different ways, from task illumination to visual comfort, perception and wellbeing, especially since the new ipRGC photoreceptor has been discovered in the human eye. And so, a lot of these have got a lot of attention, especially for the first two, task illumination and visual comfort (Velux Group, 2017). Under the rapidly growing context of energy conscious research, new ways of rebalancing our definition of healthy homes have to be considered to include those perceptual and aesthetic aspects of daylight that are often disregarded by the world of technicality and simulation (Rockcastle, 2013, p.v).

2 Committed to taking a leading role within the building industry to create better environments for working, living and learning, and with a long history of research practices, Velux had provided the starting grounds of this project. I have had the pleasure to consult in the earliest stages of this project with the dpt. of Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate, as a means to inspire the current thesis.

Ted Honderich states that something is desired intrinsically if one desires it for its own sake. Otherwise, the desire is instrumental or extrinsic (2005). Intrinsic desires are distinguished by the fact that they are independent of other desires, while instrumental desires are more often about causal means of bringing about the object of another desire. Although it is not the purpose of this thesis to look into a totality of desire theories, types or roles, this paper will tackle desire for sky as an instrumental or extrinsic desire manifesting itself for “the sake of something else”. In this case, that something else is the intrinsic desire or need for contact with natural phenomenon of daylight and the need for view (Lam, p.25). In order to understand the extrinsic desires, one ought to understand the elements that make them so intrinsically valuable for people, which will

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Earlier conversations had with the department of Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate at Velux 2 around what shapes desire for skylight windows ultimately shaped the conceptual structure of this thesis as well – around experienced desire, sky and view.

“Dreams are powerful. They are repositories of our desire. They animate the entertainment industry and drive consumption. They can blind people to reality and provide cover for political horror. But they can also inspire us to imagine that things could be radically different than they are today, and then believe we can progress toward that imaginary world.” (Dunne & Ruby, p.1)

Generally, desires are mental states that can also be articulated by words such as “wants” or “longings”. Desires want to alter the world by showing how it should be and are intimately connected to action, while inspiring the actor to fulfill them (Lycan, 2012). Their accomplishment is typically perceived as joyful, in comparison to the negative experience of failing to do so. Conscious desires are typically accompanied by an emotional reaction, as they are usually connected with a variety of effects – a person who has a desire tends to act, but also feel and think in specific ways. Both psychology and philosophy are interested in where desires come from or how they form.

This problem statement is directed towards phenomenological material: therefore the focus will be upon people’s visual and cognitive processes and consequently on their understanding of their everyday experiences of viewing the sky. They are open, exploratory and not explanatory. They are intended to reflect process rather than outcome, and they focus on the meaning of roof windows and the multifaceted strands of human experience in connection to daylight and views to the sky.

The conceptual framework for this project follows Lisa Heschong’s depiction of the levels of experience, respectively the progression from prediction (covered in chapter 2.1) through to perception (covered in chapter 2.2) in order to define the experience of looking out through a skylight window as a desirable visual and cognitive process.

As stated in the introductory chapter, this project aims to investigate what is desirable for people in the experience of looking up at the sky – on a perceptual level. Traditional lighting study is centered on quantitative and physically measurable features of daylight, such as illuminance, luminance and color temperature. Since this thesis is focused on experience, cognitive and visual concepts are in focus and used to address the meaningful experience of looking up through skylight windows.

8 be covered in chapters to follow. Therefore, in order to understand it in the context of sky views, desire has been broken up into small relevant concepts that were reviewed through various literature, from daylighting to visual and cognitive studies.

As a communication designer, I find working at the intersection between rhetoric, visual, written and digital design as a way to dissect and understand the dynamics that characterize various socio-cultural topics today. My past knowledge and multidisciplinary experience, gathered during my bachelor, in anthropological and journalistic studies, cultural understanding, design theory and semiotics made me fascinated by identifying and assessing various phenomena in relation to social contexts. It taught me how to use research and design as means of speculating how things could be, informed by people’s reflections on their own everyday life. For me, this form of design practice thrives on imagination of design speculations, which act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality.

During the previous semester’s internship I had with the specialist lighting team at Arup Dublin, most of the projects I have been involved in were centered around daylighting practices; the resulting report I had written was titled “Daylighting in the design process of the built environment – a study bridging innovative research and practice for analyzing and communicating the qualities of daylight”. As I was getting introduced to the Arup work culture and history, the company’s founder (Ove Arup) and his attitude towards good work practices played a great role in the early formulation of my internship report. Familiar figure within the Danish culture, he was the brain behind the philosophy of total design, which really resonates with me, as a multidisciplinary BACKGROUND

During my master studies in lighting design, I have found a great interest in studying daylight, particularly exploring its effects onto people and domestic spaces. In virtue of my foundational knowledge and experience in research and communication theories, I find it relevant today to utilize said abilities to fulfill the vision of understanding and informing on the qualities and benefits of daylight at large. As I have been sitting in my home office these past couple of years, I caught myself many times in this cycle of short breaks looking out the window, which only accentuated my wondering on how many possible realities are there for why and how people perceive windows and views the way they do. My argument is that looking outside is more than just sporadically perceived sensation of a natural phenomenon, but rather it is a sense in people and, similarly to the other senses, it is a bio-cultural one.

lighting designer. That is because he believed that great architecture is accomplished when technique, design and aesthetics of building design are combined – much like what our lighting design master programme, which I have been emphasizing throughout my internship report. To examine the complex configurations of daylight through which it has been conceptualized and practiced across time and space, I draw on emotive, technical, technological and sustainable methods, theories and approaches, many of which inspired by the practice of Arup’s remarkable lighting team in Dublin. To put it briefly, the report can be reduced to the following framework for lighting designers: 1) preserve and employ the natural variation of daylight, 2) assess daylight performance beyond established standards and in a sustainable way, 3) use technological advances to improve your workflow and 4) give users the possibility to inform the improvement of design. These said key points provided a starting ground for me to build up on for the master thesis writing.

10 1. Introduction

Committed to taking a leading role within building industry to create better environments for working, living and learning, and with a long history of researching practices, Velux3 has been one company to highlight a problem area being that a lot of the current research practices and activities nowadays are often targeted towards architects or professionals in the field – of lighting, energy or environment – but Velux sees the possibility of reaching the end-user more directly. This has become one of the aims of this study, which shaped the way daylight and views to the sky have been investigated and analyzed further on.

As I continue to learn, in today’s built environment, daylight’s impact is long-term and it has to be put into a good foundation, where people understand it and are more sensitive to using it in their domestic spaces. As daylighting crosses many professional boundaries and academic disciplines and it requires a comprehensive groundwork, I want to continue the discussion around daylighting started with my internship report during for my final thesis as well, but with a more palpable and useful application that can inspire not only lighting designers, but also dwellers of today’s residential spaces.

“We do not see or perceive space as spectators of events unfolding before us; neither is our visual experience of space an exploration of stimuli waiting to be revealed to us. We experience space as active participants; our spatial experience is created in the interaction of outer stimuli, our intentionality and our actions.” (Arnkil, 2012, p.42)

Figure 2. Trajectory of building science that rationalized this paper. Inspired by Lisa Heschong (self-produced)

In order to expand the knowledge of desirable skylight windows, the paper first introduces the conceptual framework which centers around desire for sky views, which is essentially related to people’s intrinsic need for natural phenomena – daylight, skylight and view.

Part of the motivation for the methodology approach stems from the trajectory of building science (Figure 2). From a historical point of view, in the past, the emphasis has been put on the physical world, or on advanced work around the building physics, such as pragmatic measurement tools, revolutionary lighting innovations etc. Moving forward in time up to the present moment, new computational tools and forms of simulation have been developed and perfected, where emphasis has been moved towards the virtual world to easily predict what is going to happen with and within a building, ahead of construction time. However, according to Lisa Heschong, looking towards the future, true innovation will come from a more holistic approach combining all things already in practice combined with studies within anthropology, psychology, neuro- and cognitive sciences, which deal with the living world.

METHODOLOGY

11 Background

As photographs are commonly used to elicit information in exploratory interviews, Sarah Pink’s approach on this method has been followed (2005). The use of images used in the survey is intended not only to motivate interviewees to talk about their daily lives, recall past events, or uncover lost facts, but also to intentionally engage with the image of the sky. As Pink states, the 3 Soltag is a living home, designed by Velux as a candidate for the sustainable homes of the future with optimum living conditions for people (Velux Group). Here, it has been used as a case study in this project, where media was produced and analyzed by participants.

Phenomenological analysis has been used in the surveying chapter in order to analyze the understandings, perceptions and feelings of the participants and their lived experience of the phenomenon. This phenomenological study is then analyzed and interpreted; in this way, new meaning is attributed to the experience of looking at the sky through a skylight.

1. Introduction

Mind wandering questionnaires have proven to have a disruptive impact on mind wandering for people (Mrazek). Therefore, throughout the survey, mind wandering was encouraged by means of using exploratory questions and imagery. The aim was to mainly instill an intentional interaction with the sky in the participants, as well as to trigger participant memory, emotional response and easier communication of their perceptions around the phenomenon.

Secondly, visual and sensorial experience was investigated through a survey, in order to generate new meaning attached to the subjective experience of looking at the sky (chapter 4). The survey contains three parts. First, a case study (Soltag3) – where written and visual observations were noted by the researcher. The purpose of the case study was to present and exemplify the particularities created by skylights – and their implications on human perception. Photo and video documentation has been done inside Soltag during the initial observations, in order to illustrate the visual qualities of daylight and sky views being referred to in the commencing qualitative study. The second part of the survey was an online questionnaire, used to collect data from participants who self-reported as having a fascination with the sky. The third part was a semi-structured interview, conducted with one of the participants in the questionnaire, who owns two skylight windows in their home.

To define the experience of looking at the sky through a skylight window as a desirable visual and cognitive process, theories have been drawn from “Visual delight in Architecture” by Lisa Heschong. By applying Heschong’s knowledge on vision and perception, her depiction of the levels of experience have been used to structure this thesis, respectively the progression from the visual and cognitive processes of our physiological experience (chapter “The predictive experience”) to the sensorial perception, linked to sky windows and views (chapter “The perceptive experience”).

Prediction (literature study) Perception (literature study) Survey (case study, questionnaire, interview)

13 scope here was not to translate the photographs to direct verbal text, “but to explore the relationship between visual and other knowledge. This subsequently opens a space for visual images in ethnographic representation ... In practice, this implies an analytical process of making meaningful links between different research experiences and materials such as photography, video, field diaries, more formal ethnographic writing, local written and visual texts, visual and other objects. These different media represent different types of knowledge that may be understood in relation to one another.” (Pink, p.96)

methodology:

Methodology

According to Pink (2005, p.13), photographs destabilize the notion of “truth” and single interpretations, therefore reality becomes a “negotiated version of reality” where both the researcher and the participants bring their experiences to the negotiated reality (Pink, p.20). This project finds itself in the qualitative research realm and, as an approach, phenomenology has been adopted as a school of thought. This approach focuses on the essence of a lived experience and its main goal is to capture the way the phenomenon is lived by people who participate in the phenomenon (Tomaszewski, Zarestky, Gonzalez, p.3). In this case, it is particularly that of the experience created by looking to the sky. Thus, the aim will be to define the experience of looking at the sky through skylights as a desirable visual and cognitive process and ultimately bring awareness on the various layers of experience it contains. This is achieved by studying both the concept of prediction and perception, as well as the sensory and emotional meaning attached to looking out through skylight windows with reference to Lisa Heschong’s levels of experience, from her collective study of “Visual Delight in Architecture”.Overviewofthe

2. reviewLiterature Figure 3. Rendered image of a sky view (self-produced)

In order to understand the experience of looking and the convoluted layers of experience it implies, Bruce Goldstein’s study of the visual system will first be introduced, deeply rooted in our predictive experience of everyday life. A link will then be drawn between his understanding of the visual processes and Lisa Heschong’s study on visual and perceptive experiences.

In “Sensation and Perception”, Bruce Goldstein explained the visual process using a linear chart (Figure 4) that begins with external inputs and concludes with perception and experience. This mechanism involves numerous concurrent brain activity paths. Shape, movement, size, orientation and color are all processed separately by independent systems that interact with one another. Despite significant breakthroughs in the understanding of specific neural processes and specialized brain regions, it is still unclear how individual processes are merged into a cohesive visual experience. In the context of visual perception offered by skylight windows, the proximal stimulus (daylight) considered in the following sections will be the sun and sky. Theories linked to the first three layers of the visual process are briefly covered in the chapter “The predictive experience”, while theories and knowledge linked to the visual perception of the sky are unfolding in “The perceptive experience” chapter. The two mechanisms of recognition and action, will be covered in the further developed analysis of space and occupant experience with skylight windows.

“We inhabit simultaneously two domiciles: the physical world of matter and sensory experience on the one hand, and the mental world of mental realities, imagination, ideas and intentions on the other. These two worlds constitute a continuum, an existential singularity.” (Velux, 2016, p.12).

Figure 4. Visual process by Bruce Goldstein (1991) and the adaptation of Goldstein’s stages for vision to the experience of looking at the sky

The first part of the literature presents the predictive human experience – a study that introduces concepts of our visual and cognitive processes, linked the human intrinsic desire for the sky.

The underlying physiological mechanics of our circadian, visual and cognitive systems, as well as their links to the sky, are discussed in this chapter, in separate sub-chapters. Timing is critical, as each system seeks to stay synchronized with one another and to anticipate any potential changes. The communication between our eyes and brains is considerably more two-way than previously assumed to be, with one assisting the other in preparing for the next moment in time.

THE PREDICTIVE EXPERIENCE

The evolving human vision and the energetic eye “All senses contribute to the experience of the surrounding world, but vision occupies a place apart in perception; vision provides a spatial inner image.” (Arnkil, p.16).

This chapter follows the visual, circadian and cognitive processes of our physiological experience. In order to understand the benefits of the everyday experienced phenomenon of looking at the sky, we must first grasp the fundamental rhythms of the sky, as well as our response to it via our cognitive and visual processes.

According to Heschong, most of us perceive visual information so effortlessly and flawlessly, yet the processing going on within our brains is impossibly complicated (p.51). All sensory information enters the brain as pure data, based on electrical signals sent by neuronal axons from various regions of the body. Our visual system has 2–3 million axons that carry information from the retina to the brain, each one synthesizing input from 100 rods and cones on average, as well as ipRGC sensors. Our hearing system, on the other hand, has 30 times fewer nerve connections. This is only one of many examples of how our brains are wired to prefer visual information.

Although the mechanics of visual processing are not fully understood, new discoveries from anatomical and physiological research in monkeys indicate that visual signals are passed into at least three distinct processing systems (Horwitz, 2017). One system appears to process information primarily about shape; another appears to process information primarily about color; and a third appears to process information primarily about movement, position, and spatial structure. Thus, our primate ancestors are responsible for the reintroduction of daylight activities and, as a result, the main driver for our human daytime vision abilities, also known as photopic vision, are our cones (Heschong, p.38).

Rhythms of the sky

The daily cycle of light and dark is the most fundamental environmental shift experienced on our planet (Heschong). Because we have all lived with regular cycles of day and night since

The photopic vision is the main focus of this study, as we, humans, count on it for the discrimination of detail and color vision to perceive the world around us (Remington, 2012), respectively the views we have access to, in daylight. Our cones dominate at the middle of our field of vision, where the fovea centralis (anatomically, foveola) is responsible for our visual structure. Interestingly, humans have fewer cones on the retina than other animals, in order to reduce the metabolic cost of vision (Otawa, 2008). That is because they demand significantly more energy to fulfill their purpose, conveying visual changes to the brain at a faster rate. The human eye is also one of the fastest and most active sensory organ, nearly at all times in motion (Heschong, p.44). It is therefore important to note that the concentration of cones and axons into one small, 0.35mm wide area of our eyes (the fovea centralis), as well as the demanding supply of energy for our eye muscles to be in constant motion, have important effects on the functionality of our visual system and hence, our health. Keeping the eyes moving is particularly essential to the eye health. As some research on digital eye strain shows, which is often linked to the immense amount of time spent indoors by people both working and engaging in personal activities in their homes, refocusing the eyes on some distant view every twenty minutes for twenty seconds at a time helps productivity and relaxes accommodative responses in humans (Sheppard, Wolffsohn, 2018). A beautiful, distant view outside a window turns out to be a significant motivator for us to keep our eyes moving – and a roof window fulfills the characteristics of such experience.

“Primordial light was a product of the sun and the sky, atmospheric and optical interactions with the climate, geology, landscape and vegetation that define the city’s broader natural environment.” (Davidson Norris)

The human experiences are tied to planetary and solar rhythms and movements since ancient times (Bell, 2021), as well that they are determined by the global atmospheric patterns and weather that variably surges around our homes. To be healthy, all living forms on our planet must discover methods to adapt to environmental changes, as Heschong states (p. 11). Those who are most successful properly predict big environmental changes that may affect their potential to develop, allowing them to prepare for and rapidly adjust to new situations, and humans are no different. As a result, the better we can foresee the future, the more we can prosper.

The Earth revolves on its axis every 24 hours as it orbits the sun. However, not every planet does this: our planet’s 24-hour time period is unique. Single-celled creatures acquired an internal genetic clock, known as a circadian rhythm, early in the development of life to assist forecast the timing of day versus night. Internal clocks have been discovered in the genetic systems of every life form investigated so far on our planet (University of Cambridge, 2011). Human circadian system, however, is responsible for adapting to the constantly shifting durations of day vs night (Heschong, p.12).

birth, predicting that day will follow night may seem outrageously straightforward and simplistic. However, the severe environmental contrast between day and night, as well as the constant change of that rhythm, have important ramifications for all living forms on the Earth’s surface.

Therefore, understanding the geographical link between season, time of day and sun orientation

The interplay between Earth’s daily rotation with the other two planetary rhythms – its tilted yearly orbit around the sun and the moon’s monthly orbit around Earth – provide vast rhythmic intricacy. All living forms, including humans, have discovered methods to adapt to this rhythmic complexity by employing a range of sensors and systems that gather data and offer continual input about changes and trends, allowing for improved forecasting of future situations. This interplay has been observed and tested in the context of vertical, side windows that offer a rather vast field of view to the environment outside, but the experience of the circadian intricacies seen through toplighting is not touched upon in many bodies of qualitative research.

Windows help in creating recognition to the phenomenon of solar movement. Similarly, a skylight window in one’s home can also provide an opportunity for a sundial, establishing a discrete sun patch that moves around the room in a totally predictable rhythm (Heschong, p.129).

Lam’s sunlighting design strategy (1986) was based on a thorough understanding of solar position in relation to building shape and openings. Despite the fact that the sun’s hourly location in the sky is completely predictable, few individuals master the principles of solar movement –home dwellers, however, don’t have a functioning compass in this regard, as their knowledge has been limited to that of grasping the changes from day to night, season to season alone.

Dynamic elements of the sky

19 may therefore assist a home dweller’s choices regarding where and why to install windows, or skylights instead of windows, in their own space.

Despite the fact that daylight is highly dynamic and in a constant movement, the path of the sun through the sky is entirely understood, as it is predictable. We can easily predict how much light enters through a roof window or strikes a window at any given time and space, and on any day of the year. We have a greater understanding of the elements of daylight, as opposed to the ones of the sky that can be linked to weather and vegetation.

Figure 5. Solar radiation: spectral intensity of the sun and the sky (Source: Velux)

As shown in Figure 5, the visible light component of solar radiation accounts for less than half of the total energy received directly from the sun when we are outside. The graph compares the intensity of solar radiation found outside the atmosphere to the ensuing spectral profile at sea level after passing through the atmosphere. Both have peak intensities in the blue wavelength, around 480nm. Those blue wavelengths are mostly diffused through the atmosphere, resulting in the blue of the blue sky. The resultant diffuse radiation from the sky, minus direct sunlight, is shown by the thick blue line at the bottom of the graph, peaking at around 480 nm.

Cognitive mapping, memory formation and retrieval, spatial awareness and mind wandering, all appear to be related in some way to our interaction with daylight and windows (Heschong, p.60). The history of how scientists have investigated these distinct mental states over the past decades is a potentially enlightening tale that may show the fundamental benefits of window views but also the future potential for expanding the research.

Whenconditions.sunlight enters a room via a clear window, it can be easily ten times brighter, and contributes more than ten times as much energy into the room per square foot of window area than daylight.

Circadian stimulus comes from what we look at. From an evolutionary perspective, one of the first functions that developed was the detection of day and night characteristics of the circadian system, as a result of the awareness of the direction of the source of light. As we now understand, the main circadian receptors, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, are located in the retina and have a great influence over our visual function, as previously seen, as well as over our cognitive function, as covered below.

Images of one sensory realm feed further imagery in another modality. Images of presence give rise to images of memory, imagination and dream (Pallasmaa, p.48).

Cognitive processes and the sky

In addition, any patch of sunlight in a room is also in constant slow motion, tracking the arc of the sun in reverse. The patch will gradually enlarge or shrink depending on the geometry of the building and other obstructions. Thus, given both its intensity and variability, sunlight always has a dynamic presence in a room, making the room seem more vivid and lively. The dynamic variation of light, both daily and seasonally, is an important aspect in establishing and sustaining our 24-hour daily rhythms – our circadian rhythms – which, in turn, play an important part in the control of the sleep and wake cycle. (Velux, 2014, p. 20). Strong research designs demonstrate that a view of nature aids in the recovery from stressful situations, with emotional, physiological, and cognitive benefits (Veitch, Christoffersen, Galasiu, p.4).

The illustrated profiles of daylight are highly dynamic, since the intensity and color content of sunlight also change continuously according to the solar angle, and atmospheric and weather

Memory formation and imagination Imagination, often used interchangeably with ‘creativity’ (Murphy, 2022) combines episodic memory retrieval, visualization, mental modeling, and spatial navigation, making it a complex cognitive construct. In the context of views to the sky, we will now look at the process of seeing, not as a mere metaphor, but as a process of affirmation of a more important relation between understanding the content of the view and our imaginative or creative abilities.

Memory and mental imagery, which are frequently seen as aspects of the imaginative process, have been proven to interact with one another (Long, 2011). Various psychological variables can alter the brain’s mental processing and increase its ability to store information as long-term or short-term memories. The neocortex and thalamus are in charge of managing the brain’s imagination, as well as many other activities including consciousness and abstract thinking. Understanding how memory and imagination are related in the brain allows for a better understanding of one’s capacity to connect meaningful past and present occurrences with their surroundings ( ibid.).

Cognitive maps and memory retrieval

We humans also have a unique ability to create internal representations of our location in the greater world, which are sometimes referred to as cognitive maps (Heschong, p.56). In 1948, psychology professor Edward Tolma proposed the notion of a cognitive map to explain how rats learnt to traverse various mazes. In his 1960 book, Images of the City, urban planner Kevin Lynch broadened the concept to encompass the mental map of a place that individuals carry about with them, to assist them navigate their surroundings. Paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks were defined as five features that appeared to be consistent throughout the various stories of the people he talked to in the process. Since then, the term cognitive map has grown to refer to any type of mental representation of logical connection, not merely related to physical geography. For this study, I use the word in the same way as Kevin Lynch used, to refer to people’s awareness of the physical arrangement and interactions of their surroundings.

As Heschong states, we have now discovered that this mapping capacity is also closely linked to the creation of long-term memories ( ibid.). The hippocampus is the brain region located deep in the brain, near the brain stem, that has been found as vital for both spatial mapping and memory. It is now recognized as the site of spatial orientation and navigation, as well as being necessary for the consolidation of short-term memories into long-term memories. What is more, exposure to daylight appears to play a function in the consolidation of long-term memories acquired in the hippocampus. According to a recent study from the National Institutes of Health, ipRGC cells in the retina have axon extensions that extend straight to the hippocampus, therefore daylight is likely to alter crucial hippocampal processes in some way.

Singer began investigating the links between daydreaming, imagination, creativity, curiosity, and delayed gratification in children in the 1960s. He continued to hypothesize, as a lonely voice in the profession, that daydreaming was a normal, good function in both children and adults that assisted planning, problem solving, storytelling, and better social skills. In 2010, Harvard

Sky view as a gateway to mind wandering

Furthermore, there is evidence that episodic and spatial memory formation is somehow linked to a circadian cue (Reppert, Weaver, 2002), such that it works well when the day and night lighting pattern is robust but declines when the day and night lighting pattern is weak. Window views can give both the information that informs the cognitive map, assisting us in locating ourselves in reference to the outside world, and the circadian stimulation that aids in memory formation. This is something our brains accomplish simply and automatically, so it is a natural function. We feel secure and well-oriented when we have that information stored away because otherwise, without it, we feel uneasy and disoriented.

Mind wandering has been a modest topic of research in the realm of psychological theory, but it is regarded as highly relevant for this topic. Mind wandering is an everyday cognitive experience in which attention becomes discarded from the immediate external environment and focused on internal trains of thought (Schooler, 2015).

In early research, mind wandering gained a negative connotation, often being called distracted thinking. William James, a 19th century psychologist, defines mind wandering as a scatterbrained state:“Everyone understands the concept of attention. It is the mind’s distinct and vivid ownership of one of what appear to be multiple concurrently potential objects or trains of thought... It entails withdrawing from certain things in order to cope efficiently with others, and it is a condition having a true opposite in the confused, bewildered, scatter-brained state.” (James, p.403).

It used to be considered a key indicator of unhappiness and disability. However, psychologist Jerome Singer believed that there is a positive side to mind wandering as ‘positive constructive daydreaming’. Positive-Constructive daydreaming is characterized by a change in attention from a physical or mental job to a succession of thoughts generated from long-term memory, usually taking a narrative form (Kaufman, Singer, 2011). Daydreaming can be considered a subset of mind-wandering, with the exception that much of mind-wandering is characterized by shifts of attention from an already ongoing task to new sensory reactions in the individual’s physical, social, or bodily environment, rather than thoughts derived ultimately from long-term memory.

psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert conducted a study which found that all people’s mind is wandering for 47% of the time while being awake and during all possible activities in a day. Because of this study, mind wandering quickly became a well-recognized cognitive activity of healthy adults, as suggested by Singer. Other researchers have begun to refer to mind wandering episodes as “mental time travel,” in which our thoughts project ahead into the future or far back into old memories (Heschong, p.71). According to Heschong, there is a need to anchor our sense of time in the present, therefore be intentional when engaged in mental time travel. Writers and artists frequently rely on their window views to assist launch them into the fictional world of their creative activities, as well as to quickly return them back to reality. The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote extensively on her encounters with her window as a form of poetics of the soul, often her poetry being composed in front of a window (Baran Studio, 2014). It was an architectural extension of her soul and a means of sharing it with the outer world, while also providing an opening for her to take in outside stimuli.

This goes to show that for many people, the experience of looking out an ordinary window is somewhat unconscious. This is a result of their mind wandering and thought processes being not fully conscious when looking out a window (Heschong). For this reason, mind wandering will be utilized as a driver of imagination to collect qualitative insight from the participants, as there proves to be a great potential at fulfilling the vision of this study. We will further look into the sensorial experience and the possibilities that a view to the sky offers, in relation to our physiological mechanisms already presented.

Philosophers and psychologists agree that the purpose of glancing out a window is, ironically, not to discover what is happening outside but rather an exercise of finding the contents of our own thinking. People want to believe they understand what they think and feel, but this is rarely the case, as there is a lot of what makes us who we are that goes untapped and unnoticed. The window is also associated with the prominent French philosopher Gaston Bachelard as a philosophical space of existential contemplation in which ‘in’ and ‘out’ are dialectically made apparent in a single glance—as if the window itself is a required place to contemplate alienation ( ibid.). Gazing out the window allows us to listen for the softer suggestions and viewpoints of our inner selves. Plato proposed a metaphor for the mind: our ideas are like birds fluttering around in the aviary of our brains. Plato recognized that in order for the birds to settle, we required moments of purposeless peace (The School of Life, 2018). Staring out the window provides such an opportunity, where one does not need to respond; one ought to not have any overarching ambitions, so the more hesitant elements of ourselves get a chance to be heard.

The second part of the literature presents the perceptive human experience – a study that introduces the skylight as the aperture being investigated and then elements of our perception, linked to sky windows and views.

This chapter gives context to two types of toplighting methods people are accustomed to experiencing the sky through and emphasizes the one that will be referred throughout the rest of the Architects’paper.concern with daylight has been motivated thus far by a need to manage the indoor climate, preserve comfort, and pierce the skin of the indoor area to allow light. The window has traditionally served as the principal interface and filter for daylight (Velux, 2011, p.51).

THE PERCEPTIVE EXPERIENCE

Skylights: visual confluence between outside and inside

Toplighting, the broad term for getting daylight into a structure from above, was one of the earliest, and continues to be one of the most effective architectural strategies for daylighting an interior space and creating the connection with daylight. This design feature has been in use since ancient times – smoke holes on the roofs of Native American tepees and kivas allowed smoke from fires to escape and light from the sky to enter, while the Greeks and Romans refined the use of courtyards and atria in their structures to let light in from above as well (Heschong, p.136). A glazed skylight window, often known as a roof window, is used in the modern day. A roof window is best known as a view window installed at eye level in a sloped roof, whereas a skylight is installed overhead and designed to offer illumination but no look out other than that of the sky. Roof windows have been demonstrated to offer at least twice as much light as vertical windows of the same size under identical conditions, and three times more light than dormers of the same size (Figure 6). The roof window also gives a wider range of light levels, increasing the aesthetic

Changing elements of the sky

25 attractiveness of the space. Roof windows, in addition to providing more daylight, have been demonstrated to provide higher wall luminance than dormer and facade windows, resulting in a gentler transition between the high brightness of the window pane and the surrounding wall, reducing the danger of glare (Velux, 2014, p.49).

Secondly, the toplighting opening, also known as the aperture, is likely to view far more of the sky, and a brighter part of it, than a window installed on a wall. This goes to show the dual function of toplighting openings, which consequently creates a dual form of experience: that of the inside world (of the home) and the outside world (the surrounding environment and life), where the geometric shape of the window to the sky is the gateway to those experiences.

A look outside enhances the desirable experience of window views, particularly for natural, beautiful, and intriguing sights and have been discussed in the context of roof windows, like the sky and its elements. However, the mechanisms underlying the experience of skylight views are not entirely understood (Knoop, p.433). One significant contributor to how desirable these views are is how often and how quickly they change (Heschong, p.145). An amplified type of change that can is experienced through a skylight window is a result of daily weather. In a place Figure 6. Comparison of daylight factor levels along the depth of a room (Source: Velux)

As physical dimensions of the aperture, such as height and size, are not relevant to the scope of this study, we will further refer to the aperture as “skylight”, to emphasize its role of illuminating and providing access to the sky. Toplighting provides a variety of significant benefits as a daylighting approach, which has not been contested, but rather emphasized in a great amount of research today. For starters, it directs sunlight far into a place, where it is most beneficial.

26 like Denmark, this tends to be more visually entertaining, as there is always motion on the sky. Other irregular events happening outside our dwellings, that can be observed through a roof aperture, such as street parties, parades, fireworks – give extra meaning to the skylight window view, adding both memories of the past event and anticipation of the next (ibid.). Therefore, unpredictability increases the desirability of such view.

Sunlight refers to the light ray that travels in parallel beams directly from the sun (Heschong, p.93). Sunlight is characterized by its intense brightness, the sharp shadows it creates, and its reflection off glossy surfaces provides highlights that are nearly as bright. Because human eyes are accustomed to midday sunshine as an evolutionary reference for pure white light, sunlight

Adaptation is the most prominent aspect of human vision that perceives change. All we perceive has a reference level, whether it is brightness, darkness or color, and we interpret it in terms of that reference level (Lam, 1986, p.13). Hence, every visual perception has some basis in old or current knowledge subjected to each individual’s experience, context and anticipation. Simultaneous contrast influences both brightness and color. Similarly, the view out a window may be several times brighter than the interior; nonetheless, this difference in brightness will only be unpleasant if the two are in strong contrast. Illuminating the wall near the window creates a transitional space, which reduces the contrast created by the aperture. Light and color variations, as well as contrasting shadows, contribute to how we perceive daylit spaces and consequently, the surrounding environment. When sunlight and daylight combine, they produce a wide range of lighting patterns. The circumstances in which these perceptions emerge are intricately linked to 1) the sun’s location in the sky, when visible, 2) the clearness or haziness of the sky, 3) the appearance of different cloud types and 4) the properties of the natural and man-made reflecting environment (Mardaljevic, p.558).

The term skylight refers to the light reflected from the sky (Figure 7), that being the sunlight which has been scattered by particles in the atmosphere that travels each way (Heschong, p.94). Because its light is diffuse, one perceives its cast shadows as soft. For this reason, when it permeates a skylight window, it provides a general illumination that appears diffuse. The softer shadows and bluish light of daylight create a gentler ambience, especially favoring the rendition of all colors. A sensible phenomenon is sunlight scattering in the atmosphere, which occurs when sunlight is variably dispersed by random molecules. Short blue wavelengths are dispersed the most, giving the sky its blue hue, but longer-wave, yellow and red wavelengths, travel farther and are scattered less. (Heschong, p. 101). Sunlight scattering thus explains why the sky is so changeable in hue, in this sense, the color of the sky being an illusion that fluctuates significantly depending on your vantage position relative to the sun.

After gaining a wider understanding to discuss daylight and the color property it accompanies the sky, we now have a deeper look at daylight as a source of illumination that travels through roof windows. The fascinating sky view “Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world.”

Where we want the maximum daylight illumination in a space may not be the same as where we want to gaze out.

Ultimately, creating a symphony of daylight illumination within a building may conflict with the perspective we want of the world outside (ibid.). One of the difficulties of effective daylighting design is resolving this disparity. We discussed the relative brightness of a view earlier, whether it is sunlight or in shadow based on direction and time of day. Later, we discussed how to balance Figure 7. Components of daylight (Source: Velux)

(Diane Ackerman) According to Heschong, the positioning of a window, or more broadly, an aperture, impacts not just the flow of light into a structure, but also the view out of a building (p.151). Few other architectural features serve such clearly dualistic, and sometimes contradictory, functions.

27 also serves as a scientific reference for a full-spectrum light source, providing the most accurate perception of all hues. Sunlight also introduces an element of radiant heat, commonly known as infrared radiation (IR), which, depending on the temperature, may be beneficial or unpleasant. We can detect extremely modest quantities of solar heat through our skin sensors.

28 the brightness patterns inside a space by bringing in daylight from numerous directions and diffusing direct sunlight as it comes in.

If previously we looked at how the path of the sun through the sky is entirely understood and predictable, here we can mention that the sky itself, has many elements in relation to the perceptive experience, that are impossible to reproduce. Many of these items of the sky move in an unorganized way and cannot replicate their reality by any simulation tool. Views provided by the roof window give information on diurnal and seasonal changes, as one is aware of, as well as the extra visual interest of the moving clouds, birds, floating particles, pollen clouds and other transient activities, all of which provides cognitive stimulation and respite from the more regulated inside environment. They therefore offer a unique experience to the viewer at any moment in time.

But what generally constitutes the benefits of a view to the sky is, in some respects, a fairly difficult wondering, due to the intricacy. There have been a few studies that have attempted to identify various perspectives, but most would agree that thorough study on sky views is still in its infancy (Heschong, p.155). We will begin by exploring the more tangible aspects of views top lighting that people experience, such as the sky and its ephemeral elements then advance to more abstract features, such as complexity, ambiguity, and change (FIgure 8). This chapter then concentrates on perceptual characteristics, whereas subsequent chapters will look at the deeper emotional, social, and cultural relationships we create with views. The sky is usually described as an important aspect of any view. When they can see the sky, people frequently express simple appreciation for this experience. But what is it about the sky that makes it so special? When Lisa Heschong asked respondents why they appreciate their office window view, the most common response was “I want to know what the weather is doing.” (p.157). This makes a lot of sense in areas where the weather is very variable and unpredictable, similar to Denmark, where rain and clouds come and go swiftly throughout the day. This leads to the possibility that knowing the weather is a code for some other need or desire.

Figure 8. Renderings of the sky during the day, with its fascinating variations (self-produced)

Temporal orientation is a strong candidate, according to Heschong ( ibid.). A view of the sky is likely to contain the chance to see a ray of sunshine entering the room, creating a dramatic time marker for the day, as well as the chance to see the changing hues of dawn or dusk. As previously noted, atmospheric dynamics offer a temporal foundation for the day: humans intuitively evaluate the time of day based on the hue and brightness of the sky. But the sky with all its glory, is not just something to gaze at. In her meditative book “A Natural History of the Senses”, Diane Ackerman defines the sky as the lively environment we live inside, the medium of our existence: “Take a look at your feet. You’re up in the clouds. We tend to glance up when we think of the sky, although the sky truly begins at the earth”. She goes on to describe the complexities of the living around us: “Without thinking, we commonly talk of an empty sky” –however, the sky is never empty, and it is never the same. People have to be reminded that there is so much more to be experienced, that moves beyond the roof window to the sky. “The air is always vibrant and aglow, full of vital gases, staggering spores, dust, viruses, fungi, and animals, all stirred by a skirling and relentless wind. (…) Beginning at the earth and stretching up in all directions, the sky is the thick witching realm in which we live.” (Ackerman, p.236).

(Cornelius Castoriadis) According to Marianne Krogh in her book Connectedness: An Incomplete Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene, “we look at nature as something that is detached from ourselves”. It is true that in recent history, we have lost sight of the close, basic link that exists between us and environment. Yet, physiological effects of light are one piece of evidence for the inevitable connection that we have to nature and our surroundings still (Ravn, Mach, Hansen, Triantafyllidis, p.1). The more we learn about light’s impacts, the more we realize that the dynamic changes that natural phenomena provides have a relationship not just to our sense of our interior environment, but also to our intrinsic reality, biological clock and wellbeing, as seen thus far.

The distinctive status of skylight windows is connected to the fact that views out the window capture one’s attention, according to the previous chapter’s premises. These distracting attention pulls, in turn, result in brief interludes that can give a break from the present activities,

Perceived restorative quality of the sky “What is most human is not rationalism but the uncontrolled and incontrollable continuous surge of creative radical imagination in and through the flux of representation, affects and desires.”

Studies show that the health focus appears to have established daylight as a research field for the natural sciences, as well as for architects and engineers, which transforms daylight into a phenomenon devoid of sociality (Hauge, p.3). Since daylight and skylight experienced from a skylight window are interconnected, we draw from these studies to investigate how people experience the phenomenon of looking at the sly next. Therefore, a qualitative study of the elements of the skylight window (dynamic patterns, light, sky) and their relation to one another will follow. With this study being conducted in residential homes, the aim will be to encourage an intentional connection to nature and to one’s wellbeing. Lastly this will be assessed in terms of restorative qualities. However, we must acknowledge that this study cannot be left to architects, but rather to the residential occupants, who are responsible to creating generational knowledge and conduct qualitative, rather than laboratory research. This research study embraces daylight for its strength, energy and good environmental consequences, which will be given a residential application in chapter 3, later on.

As human civilization has progressed from independently dispersed structures to today’s

30 resulting in a micro-restorative experience. Based on prior research, it is plausible to believe that the restorative properties of such brief pauses to the sky are dependent not only on the availability of the view but also on its content (Tennessen, Cimprich, 1995). Because each viewing opportunity may be brief, the restorative benefits of window views are most likely the result of repeated opportunities.

As human civilization has progressed from independently dispersed structures to today’s congested megacities, the struggle and demand for daylight has grown increasingly competitive. This tendency was projected to gain traction as 70 percent of the world’s population was to be living in urban areas by 2020. As Velux writes, we have become constant ‘cave’ dwellers, more disconnected from the ‘naturalness’ of daylight, its sequencing, rhythm, and rituals and enduring a loss in health and mental advantages (Velux, 2011, p.44).

A study on the nature of the view from home gives substantial support for the assumption that having natural components in the view from the window helps occupants’ sense of wellbeing significantly, according to Rachel Kaplan (p.507). Views of constructed features, on the other hand, influenced satisfaction but not wellbeing. Extended restorative experiences may be few and few between for many people, as viewing out a window is more frequently lasting only for a brief moment at a time, but micro-restorative experiences, on the other hand, may be significantly more accessible.

31 congested megacities, the struggle and demand for daylight has grown increasingly competitive. This tendency was projected to gain traction as 70 percent of the world’s population was to be living in urban areas by 2020. As Velux writes, we have become constant ‘cave’ dwellers, more disconnected from the ‘naturalness’ of daylight, its sequencing, rhythm, and rituals and enduring a loss in health and mental advantages (Velux, 2011, p.44).

More reflections on the literature

The paper has so far addressed the physiological mechanisms of human circadian and cognitive systems in relation to the sky, later on exploring the visual and sensory experience related to skylights and views to the sky. These overall defined the experience of looking out through a roof window as an intrinsically desirable act. It demonstrated that the sky visually exists as a result of our predictable and perceptive grasp of natural phenomena of daylight and skylight. Therefore, the first problem statement has been answered. In order to add to the knowledge summarized above, as well as to continue to peel of the layers of the problem statement, we will further look at what meaning is attached to the phenomenon of looking at the sky through skylight windows. Visual perception linked to skylight window views was accepted as an ongoing process of predictions and anticipation and we are now making grounds for an unfolding of a phenomenological approach, where it is expected that the sky view boosts perceptions of restorative qualities through mind wandering.

3. Survey Figure 9. Photograph of the sky, seen through a skylight window in Soltag (self-produced)

(Will Bruder)

”Your eye is drawn up along the surface of the building, towards the line where it kisses the sky. And that line tells you everything. […] Our best buildings are the ones that form a perfect dialogue between shadow and light, and between the earth and the sky.”

The journey of investigating the experience of sky windows and views continues with a case study, where photo, video and written observations have been created to investigate own experience of the phenomenon of looking at the sky windows and views. The goal was to find a space that has the potential to heighten mind wandering exploration and this is how Soltag came about. The purpose of space became generating visual material and new meaning of the connection to nature, by the extension of the building towards the sky. Thus, contextual information on the Velux’ Soltag home will be introduced, as the case study of this chapter, which is described here as the expression of daylight and sky fascination. Afterwards, a spatial analysis of Soltag has been developed, together with a commencing experiential analysis of being inside in the course of a day, back in February 23rd, 2022. Visual and written documentation has been used to register and analyze the qualities of the light and sky, both inside and outside of Soltag on the day of the space analysis. Several photos taken on the day have served as visual cues within the online survey launched and analyzed later on.

VELUX has created the Soltag project (en. ‘Raise the roof), a housing solution that specifically meets the climatic conditions in Northern European countries, to show energy efficient restoration for existing structures and to offer a sensibly efficient model of future housing standards. The concept behind it goes a long way, showing that it is possible to create an extension to the building design, that allows more people to experience life under the sun.

Figure 10. Illustration of the Soltag home (source: Velux)

Soltag implements the new energy standards in an innovative manner. Heat insulation and ventilation were both taken into account while designing this living, healthy home. The goal CASE STUDY

Upon research on healthy home project implementations, as well as Velux’ support on accessing the space, Soltag was chosen as a case study and reference space for this thesis. The purpose of this is to provide a reference for the topic at hand, where the connection to daylight, top view and the respective experience of the two in the context of highly dense cities could be analyzed.

It is designed to be a roof refurbishing solution – a residential unit that can be installed to existing 60’s and 70’s multi-story housing without requiring connection to the building’s current energy infrastructure (Velux). Soltag consists of two modules, one containing the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and entrance area and the other one containing the living and dining room.

Overview

35 of the project was to strike a balance between energy absorption, insulating capacity, and air exchange. As concluded from a public brief on the house, the energy system has been thoughtfully planned and incorporated. The independent heating production and maintenance are accomplished by harvesting solar energy, which is created by the natural tendency of the windows to heat up, as well as by the solar panels that provide domestic hot water and underfloor heating (Velux).

Observations One step closer to the sky With its 45-degree sloped roof, Soltag lies directly underneath the sky and surrounded by varied office buildings, on a piece of greenery in Hørsholm. The house’s glazed surface accounts for 28% of its overall floor area of 84m. The house opens up and admits light and heat into the core of the dwelling through a great amount of openings facing the sky. The roof windows go all the way to the crest, like bands of light streaming down through the home. The roof windows that run down the inner end walls throw reflections down the floor and walls, acting as one giant Figure 11. Image from inside Soltag (source: Velux)

Visually speaking, one observation on the house is its initial presence as a well thought out energy station, with appealing design and a healthy internal atmosphere. In modern energybalanced architecture created to adapt to people, the many structural components of each module it has, each with its own energy function, reinforce and contribute to a holistic solution offering a healthy interior environment. The exterior gallery on the north-facing frontage gives a rather flexible access and, on the south side, it includes a cantilevered balcony that completely utilizes the depth of the home.

Soltag was perceived to be a home that lives, breathes, and provides quality of life for people, meant to generate energy and to act as a climate barrier, while being the extension into the outside realm. Further on, these observations on the case study will be tested in a questionnaire, in order to gain more insight on what meaning skylight windows and view hold for various participants. The participants will also be subjected to mind wandering.

Soltags’ top views granted a generous amount of light access for the eyes and immediate tasks at hand, without any room needing additional artificial lighting, during the time being (the analysis was conducted only in daytime hours). Because the house has a lot of natural light from both top and side, the light inside the rooms changes when clouds pass overhead. This produced stimulating light and color variations, described as pleasant. The dual quality of variability indoor (space) and outdoor (sky and clouds) has been made aware of better from analyzing the timelapse videos recorded on site.

36 reflector throughout the space. The light is transmitted through and reflected out into the large living room and in beneath the open loft space, down to the kitchen and dining area, eradicating any shadows cast by the loft space above. Transitions between interior construction features such as windows, sills, openings, and walls are smooth, allowing daylight to vary gradually and permeate across the space without producing startling or stark contrasts. The walls and flooring are light in hue and thus provide subtle interior reflections.

The low-level roof windows and frontal panels of Soltag offer a nice view out and down. The majority of the windows in the house face south, being conventionally placed so that they allow optimal sunlight access, while also limiting heat loss. Because the passive heat from the sun is restricted while facing north, the roof windows on this side, closer to the ridge, are letting light in while retaining energy.

Figure 12. Extracts from a timelapse video produced in Soltag, shocasing color variations around the room. The timelapse video was later used in the questionnaire (source: self-produced)

37 Figure 12a and 12b. Photographs and notes from the observations done in Soltag (source: self-produced)

has been developed to investigate phenomenon of viewing the sky through a skylight window. The survey contained both verbal and visual material, self-produced, that provided support for the premise that served the cognitive processes of mind wandering and nature reimagination through toplighting. During the questionnaire, mind wandering was encouraged, by means of using exploratory questions and imagery. People’s thoughts are nor not always tethered to the current experience, but mind wandering helps to engage internal thoughts in a deliberate way (Max Planck Institute). This will facilitate intentional interaction with the sky and thus provide new meanings to the phenomenon of looking through skylight windows.

“We have an innate capacity for remembering and imagining places. Perception, memory and imagination are in constant interaction, the domain of presence fuses into images of memory and fantasy. We keep constructing an immense city of evocation and remembrance, and all the cities we have visited are precincts in this metropolis of the mind.” (Pallasmaa, p.73)

QUESTIONNAIRE

Purposive sampling was used to ensure that the sample was compatible with the qualitative approach, with individuals chosen based on their relative familiarity with the phenomena being examined. The survey link was therefore posted among 3 online groups and communities of people that already have a fascination towards daylight, sky and exercising their creativity in various ways. The 20 participants in the survey self-reported as having a curiosity or fascination towards daylight and the sky.

The ability to envision oneself performing things in the past or future, while intentionally engaging with the sky they see (either above their head at home, or in the materials provided) was essential for this stage in the project, as to gain a clearer direction towards what areas of human perception quality to investigate later on. Thus, an online questionnaire has been launched on online platforms of people that self-stated as having a fascination both towards the sky and Therefore,daylight.asurvey

In order to not create bias for the participants, the detailed objective of this study was not entirely disclosed at the beginning of the survey. The information that the participants received was that the aim of the study is to investigate people’s perceptions and experiences with skylights or roof Thewindows.aimof the survey was for participants to first develop a sense of seeing and observing the light in and around various windows, without necessarily owning a roof window themselves, but rather use their memory and imagination to recall instances or familiar experiences similar to the ones provided by roof windows. Their perceptions of daylight and the sky were expected to be irrevocably changed once they modify their manner of perceiving. So the goal was to instill in them an awareness of daylight that they might later apply when considering a desirable healthy Dependingenvironment.on what is in the view, looking out the showcased window may provide numerous opportunities for restoration, which was expected to resurface as a theme of the survey. The setting of the survey, due to being online and accessible from a screen, is also experienced from an arbitrary, virtual distance, rather than in a controlled way.

Figure 13. Sky variations throughout the day, as photographed by members of an online community called “Himmel / Sky”. The questionnaire has been posted on this group

Figure 14. Illustration of the sections of the survey (source: self-produced)

The survey follows two scenarios developed for people with roof windows in their home (further referred to as group 1) and people without roof windows (further referred to as group 2). These scenarios are structured across 5 sections and are to be guided by either memory formation (imagination) or retrieval. The initiating section 1 seeks to assign people to the corresponding group. By doing so, the desirability for roof windows is still addressed, but the cognitive driver of the participant will be either memory retrieval or imagination. If the answer is yes, the next section of the survey connects the participant to questions about their own roof window/s at home, to kick start the mind wandering process. Once the second section is completed, the third section opens up with questions about roof windows photographed in Soltag. The thought experiment is equally engaging for people that do not have any roof windows in their home, kick starting the mind wandering process with questions on what they find desirable among light and sky views.

Key findings In section 2 of the survey, when asked what one favorite memory from their home, group 1 most often recalled moments spent in their living room. Most of them found memories pertaining other people as the most favorable ones (the “cosy hangouts in the living room”, “søndage med hygge”, “collective chats in the kitchen”). Others recalled the delight of engaging in the act of looking out (“looking out the garden”, “my kids playing in the garden”) or in taking a moment to quietly salute the sun (“sitting on my balcony in the sun”, “the sunsets”). When questions moved towards what makes their favorite room in the house desirable, most answers gravitated towards the access and quality of daylight (“I love that the room has very large windows and that it is very light”, “good lighting conditions”, “the view and connection to outside”, “several windows, door out to the garden”, “det er lyst med store vinduer”, “the patiodoors and the light”, “30 square meter window façade and 5 velux in the room”).

Figure 15. Extract from the questionnaire’s data collection process, showcasing the questions and dsome of the answers (source: self-produced)

More than half of group 1 (58%) said they have roof windows installed in their bedroom, which makes the aperture the first, as well as the last thing they look at from one day to another (“when I wake up and right before I go to sleep”, “at sunrise and sunset”, “when going to sleep or waking up”). People showcase the tendency to look up when ordinary, every day activities are conducted in their homes (“everytime I go up the stairs”, “when lying down on the rug”, “når jeg er i badekaret”) or to check in with the sky and weather (“when the sky is blue and the sunlight diffuses into the room”, “when the sun shines and makes pattern on the floor”). When asked what they find most pleasant about having roof windows (Figure 16), 83.3% chose the view to the sky and clouds as their top choice, followed by having access to natural ventilation and the view of light patterns around the room right after.

Figure 16. Responses from people owning at least a skylight in their home (source: self-produced)

In section 4, group 2 was also asked about favorite memories from their home and favorite room in the house. One informant stated that for them, “right now the purpose of my home is just a place to rest. So all my good memories are from outside of it”. What makes their favorite rooms in the home so treasured is how they make them feel (“it’s our home, hyggeligt”, “so much light and air. Like being outdoors indoors”). Some notable mentions were about the living room being their most cherished room, due to the fact that it receives “light from different angles”. Later on, participants were asked to imagine what their experiences would be with roof windows in their home. Here, once again, the view to the sky and clouds was the main factor (87.5%), followed by view of light patterns around the room and then natural ventilation (Figure 17). When asked what room they would imagine having a skylight in their home, only 2 participants hesitated to respond and said that the answer to this depends on the placement and orientation of each room in their home, which is greatly valid (“it depends a lot on the layout of the house and where the rooms are placed related to the sun and each other”).

When asked to describe what they think or imagine when looking at various daylight scenarios (Figure 18), people referenced physical objects, often linked to nature, that were not included in the scene (“summerhouse”, “garden”, “trees”). Others manifested a feeling of longing when looking at images of the sky (“want to see if there are birds”, “I’d like to go outside now”, “(I think of) happiness and maybe wondering whether my grandpa is sitting on a cloud somewhere observing me”, “dreaming”). One participant expressed that, when looking up and through his own skylight window throughout the day, he sometimes thinks of “the strong connection ancient peoples, or even civilizations of more recent time whom had a strong connection to the sky above; something which has been severed not only by light pollution but also due to our increasingly pervasive sense of ego; the stars and skies above are as much a part of ourselves as anything else in our lives”.

Figure 17. Responses from people owning at least a skylight in their home (source: self-produced)

Both groups were then forwarded to section 3, designed to explore the visual perception and mind wandering processes; all participants were first encouraged to immerse themselves in the images and videos that ran through the section. In most questions here, various photos have been shown, individually or in pairs of two, and all participants subjectively used brightness and color of light as their levels of reference to which they described what they saw.

Figure 18. Various scenarios showed to describe what participants think or imagine when looking at (source: self-produced)

People in group 2 proceeded in describing the roof window in a more pragmatic way, referring to the shape and form of the aperture itself, rather than attributing any newly found meaning to it: “Huge window at the top with a view” “Et vindue I loftet” “A window on the roof” “Glass roof” Reflections Regardless of whether they have roof windows or not, both types of participants showcased an appetite towards daylight, its qualities inside their home and the restorative quality of the views they provided to the sky.

According to the earlier findings, three resulting concepts allow further investigating the affective meanings related to skylighs and sky views: 1) daylight variability, 2) relaxation and 3) indooroutdoor relation. Memory formation and imagination in participants without a roof window has

For some people, the thought experiment resulted in negative symbolism (“weird light in the room”, “dark, sharp light”, “a bit closed or prisoned, because the contrast between the darkness inside the room and the bright light outside is a bit unnerving”, “Dark room. Kind of sad feelings”, “dark room, bad weather”). However, they were rarely inserted. At the end of the survey, each group of participants was asked to describe a roof window in their own words after completing the previous sections. It was interesting to note that people with a roof window in their home depicted it in sensible abstract ways, detaching from its physical body of a mere framework with glass pane: “Openess to the sky” “Like a call from above. A must have” “A window out to the sky and nature” “A view to the sky” “A window to heaven” “The eye of the sky” “Et vindue du aldrig behøver et gardin til og giver ro” ”It’s when you have a direct upwards view, where no surroundings/landscape is visible” “A free painting. It’s luxurious and I can’t believe it’s not mandatory that all buildings, cars, trains and everything else are not equipped with a view up - civilization would benefit from such a shift and our standard of living elevated”

In the previous chapter, we looked at one architectural construct considered good practice in connecting people to nature by extending a building towards the sky, therefore coming to be one step closer to the sky. Later on, an exploratory questionnaire has been created, with the aim of exploring how people visually perceive the skylight and the views to the sky, whether they have a skylight window in their home or not. The analyzed results confirmed that the element of view most enticing to the participants is the dynamic view to the sky and clouds, which made grounds for the one-to-one qualitative study, introduced in the next section.

44 not resulted in a vast amount of insight throughout the survey. However, for the participants with a roof window installed in their home showed greater awareness and understanding of daylight and their connection to nature, while also linking their daylight experiences and perception of their daylit home in various ways. It can be concluded that imagination and mind wandering does help in conceptualizing daylight and the access to various sky views.

Despite the occasional negative mentions in relation to skylight window and view, they never assumed all answers from one individual respondent, but were rather seldomly inserted. This hints at how inconsistent light is, how it drastically changes throughout the day and how it makes people more aware of the experience of being inside at a moment in time. Afterwards, they could eventually take part in a follow up interview, where they could elaborate on their previous answers and further describe the impact of roof windows on their everyday life and therefore inform study of desirability of roof windows.

INTERVIEW

This chapter continues with a phenomenological analysis on the phenomenon of looking at the sky, started in the previous phase of the process. The methodology used was an in-depth, exploratory interview; in a phenomenological study, interviews grant the researcher to further explore undiscovered aspects related to the phenomenon. The interview analyzed here was conducted with one of the participants who expressed having a fascination towards the sky, who already completed the survey. The participant will be referred to by her first name (Nina), per prior agreement.

Figure 19. The process of the phenomenological analysis (source: self-produced)

Method This chapter introduces information on the participant, the interview procedure, transcription, data analysis, rigor and limitations of this qualitative study approach. The process of the phenomenological analysis is illustrated in figure 19.

“Understanding presupposes experience and experience only becomes knowledge of life if understanding leads us from the narrowness and subjectivity of experience to the whole and the general.” (Wilhelm Dilthey)

46 Nina is a young Danish woman who lives in Copenhagen and studies fashion design. She was born in Risskob and was educated in both Aarhus and London, but now lives on Mimersgade in Nørrebro, while on her master’s. For almost 2 years now, she has been living with 6 other people, in a shared flat located at the top of a 4-storey building. The flat contains the forth floor of the building, combined with the attic, which used to be a drying loft. She and 2 other flatmates have their individual bedrooms upstairs, each one of them having two skylight windows in their room. Downstairs, they have an open living room-kitchen area and 3 other bedrooms. The interview was scheduled to be carried out online, with Nina participating while being in her room, at the apartment. It was semi-structured, first introducing a series of background questions, in order to create rapport. A series of simple open questions followed, which mainly asked about how the participant came to live in her apartment and what her overall experience was in her home. Later on, the questions looked into her everyday experiences with daylight and the views to the sky, focusing on the 2 skylights present in her bedroom. (Figure 20a,b).

A consent for recording the audio and video was solicitated and granted at the beginning of the interview session, which aided the transcription process. After all data collection has been realized, the interview was transcribed. In order to maximize familiarization, the transcribed data was carefully read, re-read and then reduced to meaning units regarding the phenomenon of looking at the sky through her skylights. Then these reductions were clustered into themes, Figure 20a, 20b. The 2 skylight windows in Nina’s room; from photo series taken by participant in the course of a day (source: Nina)

Throughout the interview, descriptive, evaluative and comparative types of questions have been adopted, using occasional prompts; leading or closed questions, however, have been avoided.

At the end of the hour-long interview, the participant was also encouraged to take images throughout the following days of her room, which she kindly committed to.

47 which are presented in the following section.

The data has been categorized in the following themes: first one (“Up is the only way”) revealing the participant’s impressions of having two skylight windows as the sole apertures in her room. Then, the second theme (“As long as there is light”) unfolds the various ways in which the participant stays connected with the natural phenomenon of daylight, which is considered directly correlated to that of the sky. The third theme (“Wandering away”) shows the potential of mind wandering as a cognitive process to give new meanings to the experience of looking out into the sky. Naturally the three parts are intertwined and consequently some overlapping of codes may occur. Up is the only way For the participant, looking at the sky is the only available option at being in contact with the world, as her room presented itself with only 2 apertures – the two horizontal skylight windows, placed towards the sides of the room.

As I strive to make sense of the participant generating meaning of her experiences, I use an inductive method. As a result, this study is an interpretation of another person’s lived experiences, but it is certain to be impacted by my own interpretative biases, which I attempted to neutralize.

Analysis

Figure 21. The view through one of Nina’s skylight windows (source: Nina)

This investigation looks at meaning attached to the experience of looking out through skylight window. Phenomenological analysis was used here in order to understand the essence of one participant’s lived experience and to group the data into categories.

“But it’s like it’s a blessing and a curse. It makes me go a little bit stir crazy sometimes that you basically don’t know where you are. Like, you could be in a ship, or I could be in a bunker. Like, you don’t get the impression that you’re actually on the fifth floor of a building in NinaCopenhagen.”experiencesspatial and temporal confusion, as time passes, as it is not easy to find any guiding references in her surroundings:

“You know, you get no sense of direction or where you are from looking up into the sky windows. It can almost feel like it’s a bunker that you’re living in. There’s no reference to anything. You just know it’s just a sky. It actually goes a little bit back to what we were just talking about, that like there’s no animations. You have no visual references to what is going on. So, I kind of try to imagine, like, what’s going on in my yard. Oh, there’s a school across the road and I’m just wondering what it looks like.”

“I think it’s like a longing thing as well. I wish I could see what’s going on down on the street right now, but I can’t. It’s that kind of thinking. I just try to imagine it. Instead, it’s like, oh, the kids are definitely on the playground right now across the street. What else could be happening? There’re probably some pigeons on the roof. I can I know that from our balcony we can watch straight over to the KEA campus. So, yeah, I try to imagine what’s going on outside. But almost in a sad way: like why can’t I see it?”

Nina describes some of the negative characteristics of looking at the sky as feeling of disorientation, mainly related to the content of the view. She finds it difficult to only be seeing the sky at times and no other object of form of life.

As long as there is light Describing the meaning of the experience of looking out through skylight windows cannot be separated from that of acknowledging daylight first, as the two are constantly intertwined. Moreover, Scandinavian countries on high latitude, like Denmark, have a scarce amount of sun, so it was expected that the informant would speak of the high importance of daylight.

Nina’s mood also tends to change according to the color of the sky: “If it’s grey, then it’s not as interesting to look at. On the grey days, it feels a bit sad to be in here because you’re just looking into even more nothingness than if at least there’s a blue sky, and you actually can appreciate that.”

Looking at the sky becomes an open invitation to imagine; a blank canvas that invites new thoughts and wonderings:

“I mean, the heat is unbearable in the summer, but I like the light too much, so I only actually use them (blinds) in the summer when I go to sleep, so I don’t get woken up by the sun at 5a.m. in the morning. Otherwise, I really, really have them open.”

How daylight appears around her room prompts Nina to pursue and interact with daylight in various ways, from building up around the skylight window in order to harness light, “Yeah, but then I’ve also tried to optimize it. I’m going to show you. You might not be able to see this, but I put reflective foil here. To try to reflect some extra light because especially in wintertime, even though it’s the skylight, it means you rarely have any light unless you’re home at like 11 in the morning, which I wasn’t (…) but I can definitely feel more light coming into the corners of the room now, which is nice.” to faking daylight, in order to extend it into the night: “(I have) two (lamps) that I used to “fake” daylight in the winter. And then one that I use mostly for work purposes.That weird lamp, that’s one of those daylight lamps as well. It’s a magnifying glass in the middle so I can use it for work as well. And I actually have two other LED lights that are supposed to be daylight lamps. One is just my drawing one. It’s actually a pad, just for drawing. But radiates the same kind of lights. And then I also have a small SAD lamp that is by my bed. That’s also helping me in the winter.”

Looking at the sun rise and set, and the colors of the sky rapidly changing in the process, is one simple and direct way to feed our appetite for circadian stimulus. Nina enjoys the contact she gets with the sky at large, especially from the top of the building where she lives, as well as from her balcony, right out of her kitchen: “And then that being said, we also have a very flat roof and we have a ladder going through one of our skylights. So we have like an unauthorized rooftop as well. So when the weather is good, we’ll go up there and then have a drink and watch the sun go down. So that’s another place we socialize as well.”

Naturally, Nina referred to feeling annoyed by the skylights, when they allow too much light in or when they get the room too warm. But maximizing the amount of light that enters through her two skylight windows seems imperative to Nina, even if that means compromising on thermal comfort to let more light in:

Generally, Nina feels grateful to have access to natural light, as it creates a connection to earlier memories she cherishes:

“I grew up with a family summer house that we still have. When I think of my summer house, it’s like that. It’s that contrast between a dark room with light shining through a window and the wooden objects. (…) But it’s like in a very soothing way. And that’s also what I like about

50 the patch of sun that I just showed you on my bed. That’s just the thing you think about, like a really strong sunbeam glowing through.”

“When I look up, and in particular, when the sky is blue, it makes me want to go outside because I’m like, I don’t know what’s around me. So I’m going to go down on Nørrebrogade so that I can see and realize that I am in the middle of Copenhagen or Nørrebro. It makes me want to, like, check out civilization.”

Nina also envisions alternative desirable scenarios of living with skylight windows, linking the sky view with the daylight intake: “And I think that in particularly in the countryside, for instance, it would be so nice to have a giant skylight to look at for example in the bedroom, so that when you wake up you’ll see whatever the sky’s like and at night, because you’re not in the city, you could see the stars through. That would be amazing. Like we already talked about, the amount of light you can get just by getting a skylight...it’s really something.”

Nina’s experience of looking to the sky through her skylights, although showing mixed, but honest feelings, created an image of her ideal apartment – that which can have windows on two sides, that converge into one another:

“If you go into central Copenhagen in a few places there’ll be these studio apartments, but when I say studio apartments I mean like an artist studio apartment where suddenly they have like a whole room where the facade and part of the roof as well is just glass. I think that most of them have actually been turned into galleries. But my biggest dream would be to have one of those apartments where there’s like a whole wall of window and then also like a top light as well.”

There are some deep-rooted memories constructed by the presence of sky windows, which for Nina still create associations with her current environment: “So we had a Velux window like that and it would also be looking at bits of three giant woods. And it was just very aesthetically pleasing because it almost looks like you just hung a poster. Of like a tree. But then it was moving at the same time. And confusing you with what you’re looking at, but at least there’s an object in the picture, whereas with my skylights, there’s like, there’s no kind of focus point. And I also imagine that with this one, as spring comes around and the tree will blossom. It’s going to look super delightful.”

The discussions prompted Nina to reflect upon how windows determine her relationship with the sky, with nature, with the surroundings – and with herself:

Wandering away

“I don’t want to say watching the spectacle, but I love when you can see just random people, people passing by, like on the pavement. Like, they don’t have to be doing anything interesting, but it’s just like nice to see that there’s life outside.”

Nina’s natural inclination was to compare the experience she has with views offered by skylights to another familiar experience, that of the views through side windows:

She continues by referring to the side windows as more restorative than her skylights, “I think you get a little bit of a break whenever you look out of a normal window, but you don’t get the same experience just from looking up into the sky. And I do like my skylights. I just wish I also had a window on this side so I could look outside and I’m like a very happy girl, but you can’t always choose.” but this possibility for momentary repose, called by her a “concentrated break”, is only attributed in the context of a work-related task: “But interestingly, I think that personally I would be able to work better if I had a window on one of my sides because it feels more like a concentrated break then just looking at your wall, does that make sense? You don’t need to be doing it through a window for very long and then you can zoom back into what you’re doing. It gives a little bit of breathing space, but without it taking very long, and then you can kind of get back into your focus whereas when I’m in here sometimes, especially at night, you feel like there’s nothing to look at except your computer. (…) So you feel kind of like weirdly forced to work or do what you need to do on your computer. But you feel like you’re missing stimuli or something. (…) You always feel a little bit trapped.”

Reflections The interview reaffirmed many of the previously researched and presented evidence on the experience of looking at the sky – linked to the physiological mechanisms of to our circadian, cognitive, visual processes in relation to sky windows and views.

The interview with Nina showcased valuable lessons regarding the experience of looking out through skylight windows as well as the phenomenon of looking at the sky generally having a restorative property. During the course of the interview, the skylight windows have generally been described as the gateways to an external world (outside of Nina’s room) that she doesn’t seem to know much about, as the skylights do not allow for a lot of visual information to play beyond the skylight frames or to permeate her room – other than the view of the sky and the occasional clouds. As a result, her mind often tries to imagine what is going on outside of her

Finally, drawing on the earlier analysis, we can conclude that, the phenomenon of looking at the sky showcases a range of meanings. The skylight window was evaluated as a restorative device that instills the feeling of wandering away in home dwellers – unique to this particular experience.

Interestingly, it also shed light on some conflicting, but interesting ideas about skylight windows that makes them undesirable. However, since this knowledge is limited to one participant’s subjective experience with the two horizontal apertures in her room, it cannot be generalized. The participant thus often referred to the phenomenon of looking up as unpleasant. In her case, the phenomenon became undesirable, as it was a constant reminder of the insufficient natural light that the windows permit around the otherwise dark room. However, her experience of looking up gives her momentary repose from her everyday activity, especially centered around work. As a resolution, the participant proceeded to optimize this deficiency by adding reflective material around the skylights, which added intermediate layers of visual rhythms, softened the window openings and an almost tactile boundary between inside and outside.

52 apartment, but often makes her feel disoriented. The analysis concludes that the insights of one participant alone were not sufficient in attesting that views to the sky have a restorative quality, but it did manage to make the participant reflect upon various themes.

Figure 22. Zoom in image of one of the two skylights in Nina’s room (source: Nina)

As Peter Salmon (2002) has pointed out, in order to make sure the research question is answered, a series of objectives can be derived from it which, once presented and analyzed, can echo that the question has been answered. Thus, early on the problem statement has been broken down into two parts that focus on the levels of experience of viewing the sky. The methodology used to look into these levels, with a reference to Lisa Heschong’s study of visual delight, led to a variety of correlated insight from the survey. The expectation was to adapt her model to explore the potentials of the window, to define the experience of looking out through a skylight window, which has been achieved. As a result, the study represents a significant step towards deepening our understanding of the phenomenological experience of looking at the sky through a skylight window, which adds value to the existing body of knowledge on widnow views. However, this research has its limitations which, as addressed below, may enhance the effectiveness of future research. Therefore, this chapter further discusses and analyzes the followed research practice, the implemented methodology approach and the implications of the present findings. A final section includes the perspectivation and the intention for future works. I walked into the study wanting to find a cure or an answer, but the more I got into the research, the more it became as a convoluted, difficult task to do, due to the complexity of the topic around desire for sky windows and experience of looking out through them, and the insight that gradually gathered. Overtime, I got to appreciate the challenge and the freedom of an unfocused mind, similarly to the participants of my study, because it made me aware too of this natural cognitive process present in our everyday life. I also realized that the investigated desire is a quite fundamental concept, and it could be relevant for many other fields of study. That is because various definitions and theories of other concepts have been expressed in terms of desires. Human responses or actions depend on such desires and moral praiseworthiness is sometimes defined in terms of being motivated by the right desire (Crisp, 2017). Some desiresatisfaction theories of wellbeing state that a person’s wellbeing is determined by whether that person’s desires are satisfied ( ibid.). As such, it is fair to claim that people who do not get to experience the phenomenon of looking out to the sky first-hand, from their own home, cannot feel the same kind of wellbeing as those who are familiarized with the phenomenon. And until the ones who don’t do, they won’t be able to identify their desire for sky views and take action on that desire.

54 4. Discussion

55 New approaches may be useful to understand the significance and profundity of the sky, then of the phenomenon of looking at it through a skylight window in one’s home. The impact this phenomenon has on restoration, respectively on wellbeing, could have been a more in depth study, investigated on its own terms, but also as an area where other research areas may be required for understanding the phenomenon in depth. There were aspects related to mind wandering that have been left out, for example the applications of them in various other research, which could have hinted at a better implementation of the prompt into the study of experience of sky windows and views. This conscious disregard resulted in the reduction of this study to using mind wandering as a simple, qualitative tool of generating insight and, further down the line, analyzing its meaning. Regarding the procedure of the questionnaire, one comment would be regarding the setup in which participants logged in their responses. According to the data export, 12 out of 20 people fulfilled the survey during daytime hours, while 8 during night and evening, therefore their perception towards the experience and potential of the sky window and views might have been influenced by the absence of light. The interview raised the question of revisiting more literature in order to verify whether the experience of looking at the sky would be heightened by having two apertures, one vertical and one horizontal (a skylight). This could indicate the presence of a quality with implications for practice and theory. Therefore, future research could establish whether this quality is relevant in relation to this study and, if true, to what extent. This qualitative research can be further developed into a quantitative instrument, as quantification of views and contextual clues from skylight windows needs further investigation. The analysis of the phenomenon of looking at the sky needs to establish a more robust evidence base for the potential of showcasing a restorative quality. Other wellbeing effects of the phenomenon could also expand on the body of research. Future study in this regard should however include a larger sample of participants of a larger cultural diversity, in order to help the transferability of the findings to a wider population. Drastically changing weather conditions (in this case, specific to Denmark) and diversity of architectural archetypes (unique to each participant’s home) may have influenced the occupant responses as well; consequently, the impact of climate and culture on view appearance, as well as comfort aspects, could also be the subject of follow-up investigation. Another alternative of collecting evidence may be one done in a more controlled environment and in a physical context, as opposed to virtual. or example of a test where people are invited at a specific time and location. Finally, this research has only been a snapshot in time, whereas long studies of looking up through skylights, at various periods of life, could shed light on more of its effectiveness on wellbeing.

56 5. Conclusion

In order to move from the predictive experience into the perceptive one of looking at the sky through skylights, a survey study has been made on visual perception of people and their everyday interaction with the sky. Intentional mind wandering was used as a prompt to generate additional qualitative insights. Survey findings showed that the interpretation of the sky cannot be separated from the interaction between human and light, as the sky visually exists only as a result of our intrinsic, predictable and perceptive grasp of sky and light – turning the skylight into a restorative device highly beneficial in holding us connected to nature. The phenomenological analysis added new layers of understanding of the experience of looking through skylight windows, by using mind wandering as a prompt. The results from the survey (case study, questionnaire, interview) offer a glimpse into a great variety of impact onto people – which proved to have both a deliberate and spontaneous nature, both close and far away from participants’ reality, both future and past-oriented, both self and others-oriented, both positive

therefore set out to investigate what is desirable for people in the experience of looking up at the sky – on a perceptual level. The thesis first embarked on a literature review on prediction and perceptual levels of the experience. The literature focuses upon people’s visual and cognitive processes in relation to the sky and, further on, the skylight, drawing from the fields of architecture natural sciences, as emphasized by Lisa Heschong. The study demonstrated that the phenomenon of looking at the sky, through skylights, is a desirable visual and cognitive process, as a result of our intrinsic, predictable and perceptive grasp of natural phenomena of skylight and daylight. The human fascination with the sky was also studied, which resulted in people generally finding skylights desirable because they want to look at the sky and be in touch with nature.

Earlier conversations had with the department of Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate at Velux, around what shapes desire for skylight windows, structured this thesis around experienced desire, sky and view. Although the aspects linking human perception and architectural constructs have been touched upon in various research, to the knowledge of the author, no research has been performed on the lived human experience of viewing the sky through a skylight window, consequently on the relationship between people and the external realms beyond these Theapertures.project

57 or negative – as the phenomenological analyses showed.

Looking back at the initial wonder of the study – what shapes desire for sky windows – the study showed that there is no simple formula to the desirability of skylights. To understand the desire for an architectural feature as such, it means to understand the most intrinsic need we, as humans, have for daylight and view – which are indispensable and infinitely rewarding on our dwellings. The paper demonstrates a hierarchy of experience, that can be build upon for further research, as it shows that, on the most elemental level, we are constantly caught up in the everyday flow of experience. The understanding gathered from isolating the experience of looking at the sky through a skylight window uncovers that a framed view to the sky alone, although restorative to an extent, cannot always suffice one’s need for feeling connected with the world around, as it may distort one’s tie with reality. It can be a source of spatial and temporal confusion, for some, as much as it can be a relief and a blessing, for others.

Therefore, reflecting over the problem statement, various layers of meaning were successfully attached to the experience of looking through a skylight window when engaging in intentional mind wandering. The study achieved in bringing home dwellers intentionally closer to the sky, regardless of whether this is a familiar experience for them or not. Regarding the second part of the research question, we can conclude that the phenomenon of looking out through a roof window can be described as having a potential restorative impact on home dwellers. Although performed on a rather small sample, it represents a significant step towards understanding the potential for intentional interactions with the sky, as linked back to feeling connected to nature.

In terms of restoration, this can be expressed as restorative to a certain extent – sky viewing allows for experiencing a “concentrated break” when working from home, which was proven as a necessary step to take ever so often, through the day. The skylight window can thus be evaluated as a restorative device that instills the feeling of wandering away in home dwellers –which is unique to this particular experience, as the analysis of the collected data showed. Thus, this study can potentially fall into the category of skychology, as it was designed to understand and operationalize the interactions home dwellers have with the sky and impact that enhance a sense of wellbeing.

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Figure 14. Illustration of the sections of the survey (source: self-produced)

Figure 3. Rendered image of a sky view (self-produced)

Figure 18. Various scenarios showed to describe what participants think or imagine when looking at (source: self-produced)

Figure 9. Photograph of the sky, seen through a skylight window in Soltag (self-produced)

Figure 6. Comparison of daylight factor levels along the depth of a room (Source: Velux)

Figure 17. Responses from people owning at least a skylight in their home (source: self-produced)

Figure 8. Renderings of the sky during the day, with its fascinating variations (self-produced)

Figure 5. Solar radiation. Spectral intensity of the sun and the sky (Source: Velux)

Figure 19. The process of the phenomenological analysis, as (source: self-produced)

Figure 11. Image from inside Soltag (source: Velux (2008). Daylight & Architecture. Issue 9, p.33)

Figure 10. Illustration of the Soltag home (source: Velux Group brochure)

Figure 7. Components of daylight (Source: Velux)

Figure 12a, 12b. Extracts from a timelapse video produced in Soltag, shocasing color variations around the room. The timelapse video was later used in the questionnaire (source: self-produced)

Figure 21. The view through one of Nina’s skylight windows (source: Nina)

Figure 22. Zoom in image of one of the two skylights in Nina’s room (source: Nina)

FIGURES

Figure 16. Responses from people owning at least a skylight in their home (source: self-produced)

Figure 2. Trajectory of building design illustration, inspired from Lisa Heschong’s vision on visual and thermal delight in architecture (self-producted)

Figure 4. Visual process by Bruce Goldstein (1991) and the adaptation of Goldstein’s stages for vision to the experience of looking at the sky

Figure 13. Sky variations throughout the day, as photographed by members of an online community called “Himmel / Sky”, created by photographer Benny Vejlby for people fascinated by daylight, sky and photography. The questionnaire has been posted on this group

Figure 1. Rendered image of looking at the sky through a skylight window (self-produced)

Figure 15. Extract from the questionnaire’s data collection process, showcasing the questions and dsome of the answers (source: self-produced)

Figure 20a, 20b. The 2 skylight windows in Nina’s room; from photo series taken by participant in the course of a day; received after the interview was completed (source: Nina)

61 Media-technological product & A/V-product illustrating and summarising the project: www.drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jHX_8l-puYVCMgLGqVtGF9tgK7UaImQU?usp=sharing

Exploration of the phenomenon of looking at the sky through a skylight window | master thesis

Articles inside

Background

Conceptual framework

The predictive experience

The perceptive experience

3. Survey

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

Methodology