Berte Daan

Section of light . velux award 2010

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Combining the need of light with the need for compact buildings, that is in short
one of the aims of future building. Sustainability is only achieved if we find a way
to increase the building depth.
Benefits of increasing building depth:
Build more houses on the same space
Buildings that have a more compact volume, cost less energy

One of the reasons of not building to deep is the need of daylight every human being
has. If there is a possibility of letting daylight come further into the building, without
increasing the heights of the rooms, then we can start to build sustainable.
Already very early architects realized buildings, and therefore people benefit from
a building that is oriented to the sun. Waking up in the east, living on the south and
the west side of a building. The main suggestion this project does, is:
Orientate buildings to the light. Not only in the floor
plan, but also in the section. This creates specific rooms,
interaction between atmospheres in them, and deeper,
and therefore more sustainable buildings.
The reason the section of the design finally has a higher level on both the fassades,
is that the main part of the light that gets into a building is indirect light, which also
comes from the North.
The programm used for the daylight research below, Dialux, shows us that there is
a significant difference between the two buildingtypes: the conventional and the
one that is shaped to the light.