by Nicolas Roy, VELUX Group

The international conference Healthy Buildings Europe 2015 took place this week in Eindhoven on 18-20 May. On this occasion, we hosted a workshop during which Koen Steemers, Myriam Aries and Fergus Nicol addressed how buildings should be designed, if health and well-being of the inhabitants were the primary design criteria.

Presentation titles:

Koen Steemers, University of Cambridge: An Architect’s understanding of how circadian principles can be applied in the design of houses. (top left)

Myriam Aries, Eindhoven University of Technology: Home design that bridges human behavior and needs with daylight. (top right)

Fergus Nicol, Oxford Brookes University: The relation between thermal comfort, variability and contact to nature. (bottom)

Following the presentations we asked the participants to answer three questions with the use of green (yes) and red (no) cards, and to discuss why they felt the answer was yes or no.

Let us know what you think @thedaylightsite on Twitter.

Question 1: Are people in modern societies living according to their human needs?

Question 2: Does our notion of comfort leads us towards unhealthy indoor environments?

Question 3: Is exposure to high light levels more important for your health than darkness?