Sun Studies

​

Direct sunlight is of critical importance in architecture — for reasons of aesthetics, experience, and comfort, as well as energy performance. Direct sunlight can reduce winter heating, but can dramatically increase summer cooling. Direct sunlight can provide warmth and dynamism to a space, but can also mean visual or thermal discomfort for occupants as diverse as office workers and athletes. And access to direct sunlight is increasingly regulated on both the building and urban scale.

​

Until recently there hasn’t been a good way for designers to evaluate direct sunlight in a quick, quantifiable way. The architect’s traditional tools — sun angle charts and shadow studies — show only points in time, making it time-consuming to aggregate results across hours, days, or seasons. With todays technology howver we can see Direct Sunlight simulation in real time making it easier for architects and regulatory bodies to consider the elemental impact of the sun on their buildings.

​

​