Last week marked my first trip to the University of Limerick in Ireland where I introduced architecture students to the fundamentals of natural lighting design. The students constructed a heliodon and conducted model studies where they explored the relationships between solar geometry, size, scale and orientation of fenestration, and material reflectance. In addition to practical applications, students considered theories surrounding universal and local forces that converge at a site, exterior and interior connections, variations of form making and how natural light can add rich meaning to architecture, interior programming and human perception. I return at the end of February to examine how they apply this newly gained knowledge to their studio projects.
