Conceptual framework

“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)

Earlier conversations had with the department of Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate at Velux2 around what shapes desire for skylight windows ultimately shaped the conceptual structure of this thesis as well – around experienced desire, sky and view.

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. 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

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.

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 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.

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.