In the beginning of the 20th century, light served as a preventive and healing element in architecture. However, with the prevalence of penicillin in the 1940´s, attention was drawn towards a more medical treatment rather than prevention through architecture. In my doctoral dissertation “Light, Architecture and Health” at Aarhus School of Architecture 2013, I put renewed emphasis and focus upon light and architecture and their shared significance to health and argued for a better balance between light and darkness. The conclusion is that it is possible to base the architecture on a healthier light if the architecture is partly planned deliberately according to the sun and to the East, South, West and North, and partly in relation to the body’s circadian rhythm.
Forgotten Knowledge and the Worship of the Sun during Modernism Thanks to a thorough job, first revealing a collection of ‘forgotten knowledge’ based on historical sources and field studies of modernist buildings, which, in their architecture, were built upon health-related intentions, I will discuss the knowledge we have about light and health today, and argue that modernism and its strategy for optimizing the sun no longer seems to work. The same goes for modern glass architecture which unbridled opens up towards the sunlight using ‘unhealthy’ solar protective glass. It is about finding a balance between exposure to and protection from the light of the sun.
The Sunlight and the Circadian Rhythm of the Body.
This balance will exemplify through practical light experiments with the geographical orientation, the Danish weather and the body’s circadian rhythm. Through new experimental setups and the development of a new method of representation, “Simultaneous Time-lapse Photography”, he portrayed and maintain differences in light over time and place. This applies both in terms of the geographical orientation and the annual differences, at summer solstice, equinox and winter solstice, respectively. Based on field studies and studies of light, he suggested an overall architectural approach to a healthier light, a strategy which responds the asymmetrical light of the sun by being – in itself – asymmetrical. Be it in the form of asymmetrical building shapes, facades, apertures or artificial lighting. Two case studies. The accumulated knowledge about light, architecture and health is used and applied in an actual hospital construction project in Denmark:
1) The New Herlev Hospital: A consortium consisting of, among others Henning Larsen Architects and Friis & Moltke Architects won the competition in 2011 – based on two symmetrical, round buildings with glass facades designed for optimizing the daylight, the intake of daylight is balanced in an asymmetrical architecture.
2) The State Hospital: The results of an ongoing research project at the Psychiatric Center 0 in Copenhagen, where the asymmetrical sunlight and its effect on depression and sleep are studied and discussed. Through these case-studies, I will present knowledge about sunlight and health implemented in practice and discuss how this way of thinking light and health can be implemented in future architecture and influence our way of working with light in the future.
Carlo Volf is an architect working in the field of hospital architecture. He works with a scientific and interdisciplinary research based approach and currently contributes with new knowledge and new research based design methods in the planning of hospitals. After finishing his Ph.D. dissertation “Light, Architecture and Health – a Method” in 2013, he has been focusing on sunlight and solar architecture. Carlo Volf has been nominated in the INDEX Award with a case in the category Design to improve life and currently he is working on a project at The State Hospital in Copenhagen. Carlo Volf is appointed censor at Aarhus School of Architecture and at The Royal Academy of Architecture and Design and a member of the VELUX Denmark Daylight Jury.
