How the light gets in

By HERB LAGOIS

We designed and built a sunroom addition, and now we feel we are part of the outdoors. The natural light permeates throughout, and it simply feels fantastic to be in the space.

You know what they sometimes say, that you don’t miss someone until they’re gone? Sounds a bit like a country-western tune, but it’s often true.

Light is like that. We don’t really think about it when we have it, but when night falls or walls close it off, or the darkness of Canadian winter sets in, the lack of light affects us, sometimes deeply.

I feel natural light is one of the most important things we can do for quality of life. Being outdoors is always best, yet nature has a way of having us seek shelter ‒ from cold, pesky mosquitoes, heat, rain, snow, and wind.

Homes with small windows

In years gone by, older homes were not normally designed or built with large windows. Even if there were plenty of them, they were usually small (drafty, too). Homes were cut up with many rooms and walls, cutting off much of the potential for light from the outside; corridors and stairways usually had no natural light at all.

I wonder if people of bygone generations were more depressed because of it? Hard to say, of course, but research has consistently shown that plentiful daylight helps to lessen stress, depression and anxiety. It also shows that daylight can even improve our brains in the areas of attention, memory and problem-solving.

Artificial light, although it has advanced greatly throughout the decades, still can’t quite replicate natural light and its benefits. This is probably why access to natural light and views to nature are often a part of modern healthcare design. It is said that natural light has a positive impact on shorter recovery times. It also seems to have important psychological benefits.

Quality of life indoors

I like these words in The International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research (IJFMR):

“Architecture today is not about just efficient construction; it is about designing an environment that will actively support human health and well-being. Living in today's fast-paced world means stress, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other lifestyle diseases have increased steadily. This is partly because people today tend to stay indoors most of the time and often in poorly lit environments dominated by artificial lighting. In this context, the quality of the built environment, especially access to natural daylight, has become increasingly important.”

With today’s technology, home design is a completely different story than it was in the past. For one thing, it allows us to optimize indoor-outdoor integration in beautiful and healthy ways.

That’s what I did for our home. Originally I had built it for necessity ‒ a young family starting out in life: it was a roof over our heads. I would say it was typical for windows and patio doors at the time.

We felt closed in

But what I realized while living in it over the years was that the views to the back yard were awful, access to the rear yard was challenged, and the house always felt closed in.

That’s why we designed and built a sunroom addition consisting of mostly glass and sloped ceilings. The east exposure was perfect for optimizing solar gain without getting uncomfortably hot in the afternoons. (Solar orientation must be considered as part of the design process.)

The result is that we feel we are part of the outdoors. The natural light permeates throughout, and it simply feels fantastic to be in the space. We have had many moonlit nights, turning off all the lights, just sitting and admiring the outdoors. It’s priceless.

Sometimes we just sit and admire the outdoors.

Of course, we are still left with limited daylight hours in winter, so lighting is still a critical part of design. We put thought into lighting our sunroom before the electrician arrived on site. (I suggest you ask your designer about “layered lighting” and how lighting can be changed according to how you use your space.)

More daylight in our homes changes the very nature of it: how it makes us feel when we wake up, move through the day, and settle into it at night.

It’s best if we don’t miss it when it’s gone. It’s best when we design for it, wrap ourselves in it… and feel better at any time of day, in any season.

Herb Lagois is the founder of Lagois Design·Build·Renovate.