Per Nilsson
Day Lighting
A solution helping office workers reconnect with the outside environment, opening up the office with daylighting solutions, and providing better artificial light. Academic design application project.
My Role
Concept development, Technological research, All illustrations
Description
This was an application project to develop our cultural-awareness skills. The solution described here was selected by the team from several competing themes that we developed.
Problem Statement
The trend in our economy is towards knowledge-centric jobs in offices, removing workers from daylight and outdoor exposure. This is detrimental to health and performance. In a service economy, how do we prevent people from becoming alienated from the natural environment?
Design Process
Spreading Wide: Developing Themes
We started off on the project using a cultural lens. From discussions on how subcultures affect wider social trends, and how trends guide the product market, we developed a "meta model" to use as a tool to plug ideas into - to keep our focus on the relevant aspects. From there, we started exploring a few different "themes", or situations (target user in parenthesis):
- Urban Pets - how can we enhance the experience, exercise-wise and culturally? Can we use the natural ice-breaker of meeting other pet owners? (apt dog owner)
- Public Transit - Make it more convenient or pleasurable to increase usage; better user information - eliminate not knowing if you missed the bus (occasional bus riders)
- Encounters in Public Spaces - Social interaction enriches your life. Devise a non-intrusive and safe way to signal will to converse (shopping mall food court)
- Day Lighting - because it keeps people healthy and alert. Current trends are more "natural light bulbs" and skylights. Problems: monitor glare, night time work.
- Environmental Awareness in fast-food chains (focus on educating kids)
Going Deep: Narrowing in on one Theme
We saw a greater potential to have an impact in the natural light theme. We researched existing daylighting products, and saw that there are many solutions to daylight an office space. But what about a solution for rooms that don't have outer walls, or for the part of day when there is no natural light?
Our Product Concept: Smart Window
Current daylighting solutions make daylight use practical in an office environment; however, when the sun sets, workers are still relying on artificial light fixtures. We propose to make the windows themselves into light sources when there is no daylight.
The smart daylighting window consists of three layers. The first layer is a thin, adjustable tinting layer for dimming the daylight intensity. It will be monitored and electrically controlled using light sensors. Then there is an organic light emitting diode (OLED) layer in front of the glass pane. This configuration provides daylight simulation during night. The dimming layer is fully opaque in nighttime mode, to eliminate external light pollution.
Both the reactive tinting and OLED technology are currently too costly to be considered in production, but accelerating change in technological and materials development, together with market demands, are likely to bring the price down in the next few years.
Further Work
More work is needed to assess light quality and subjective experience of OLEDs, and the technological feasibility of the layered window. Research and testing should be conducted to decide what types of artificial lights should supplement the smart windows to prevent "cave effect" in parts of the office away from windows. Consulting with architects will help decide actual form and placement of windows, in a given office.
Team
Diana Kidd, Amir Moghadam, Per Nilsson, Dan Swan, Robert Wesley