Methodology

“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)

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.

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.

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

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”).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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”.

Overview of the methodology:

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