An Architect’s Guide to Hacking the Sun

93 million miles away, there's a 15-million-degree ball of fire in the sky. It can hold 1.3 million Earths inside it. It can save your clients money, boost their health, and elevate their mood. If used properly, you might even have clients so happy that they return to you for their next project.

The best part about it? It's free. All you need to do is use it.

For architects, harnessing the power of the sun is about as ancient as civilization itself. Yet, modern-day structures are ripe with examples of how not to use the sun. Glare-filled office spaces with not enough shading solutions. Homes with solar orientation that deprive its occupants of sunlight - the examples go on.

So what's the solution? How do we use the sun in a way that both saves money and increases occupant health and happiness? The answer (as you may expect) isn't a one-size-fits-all solution - but that doesn't mean all hope is lost...

Let's dive into the world of effective daylighting, using the Ransom Everglades STEM school by Perkins & Will as our guiding light. We'll explore three key factors that every architect should consider before touching pen to paper, all in the pursuit of quality daylighting, happier occupants, and healthier spaces.

Site: Your Canvas for Solar Mastery 

Evaluating a site is like sizing up your canvas before you start painting. You can't build a building unless you know what's around it, under it, and above it. The same applies to developing a site-based daylighting strategy. Being intentional about daylighting from the get-go gives you your biggest, easiest opportunity to create effective daylighting, and it all starts with the building footprint and mass.

Think of it like playing nice with the sun. Maximize massing exposure on southern and northern facades while minimizing exposure on eastern and western facades. This prevents harsh, direct light in the morning and evening while allowing diffused light to enter spaces when the sun is at its highest. Another pro tip? Keep room depths under 60 ft to prevent dark, artificial-light reliant spaces.

Now, let's take a peek at how the Ransom Everglades STEM school employed these strategies to handle South Florida's 'Tropical Monsoon' climate. With a long rectangular site, they minimized direct western and eastern exposure on the short sides of the building mass, while placing heavy emphasis on the northeast facade. This allowed them to provide shading in the courtyard to the north while simultaneously pulling in as much indirect light into the building's classrooms.

Here's a quick rundown of how each face of the mass responds to its site and solar orientation:

• NE - The main facade is made up of three stories of continuous glass. Thanks to it’s NW orientation, it welcomes indirect daylight without letting harsh sunlight that causes glare in the classrooms.
• SE - A wide, almost amphitheater-like staircase provides a shaded breakout space for students and doubles as protection from direct eastern light.
• SW - With minimal fenestration, this facade prevents excessive heat gain and unwanted glare - only letting direct light into the upper classrooms via two "light scoops."
• NW - Similar to its SW counterpart, this facade has little fenestration, allowing direct daylight only into primary circulation areas to prevent afternoon/early evening glare inside classrooms.

Climate: Your Solar Strategy's Secret Weapon 

Next up in our sun-hacking toolkit? Climate. Your daylight strategy should be as unique as the regional geography and macro-climate you're working with. Different climates will require different (sometimes drastic) strategies, typically focusing more on the type of fenestration and façade systems than massing.

In hotter, sunnier climates, you'll want to develop a daylighting system that maximizes daylight without creating hot spots or glare. Think of shading systems like overhangs, light shelves, and facade screening elements as your sun-taming tools. They're great at reducing harsh direct light while simultaneously preventing unwanted solar heat-gain.

For colder, cloudier climates, you'll typically need less fenestration and lower window-to-wall ratios due to the necessity for higher R-value wall assemblies. While this can present some challenges due to the decreased fenestration, there are strategies that can be used to maximize the available daylight - including light shelves and lighter toned material selection to bounce light deeper into the space.

Back at the Ransom Everglades STEM School, Perkins & Will tackled the challenge of balancing daylight needs with glare and heat-gain reduction using two clever exterior strategies:

• Overhang and Inset masses - A conservative 2-3 ft overhang on the northeast facade reduces glare in the summer months, allowing for 20ft tall spans of glazing to flood the classroom spaces with indirect light.
• Natural Foliage - With large vines covering the amphitheater-like portico at the entry, and mature trees used to provide shading from the early eastern sun, the school directly links its classrooms with the nature surrounding - a practice shown to reduce stress, and improve concentration and happiness levels.

Building Typology: Tailoring Light to Function 

It goes without saying that a home has different requirements than an office, and an office has different needs than a school. This applies to daylighting just as much as it does to programming. In fact, if you're designing with daylighting in mind from the start, you can (and should) let your daylighting strategy inform your programming and space planning.

When laying out your building's spaces to maximize daylight, keep two key factors in mind:

1. Usage: Go through your space requirements one by one and determine how much daylight each needs for the activities performed there. In doing so, you’re creating a daylight priority list for your spaces.
2. Active hours: Understanding what time of day a space is used adds another filter to help you lay out your spaces. It's about getting the right light at the right time.

At the Ransom Everglades STEM school, we see this directly accounted for thanks to the team’s careful program placement and the liberal use of glass partitions that allow as much indirect light into the spaces as possible.

On the first floor, there's an open floor plan with uninterrupted sight lines to the courtyard space, allowing indirect light to push into even the deepest part of the building. As you move up in floors, there's a shift in both program and light access. Traditional-style classrooms along the northeast facade tap into the indirect light from the courtyard, while larger classroom spaces along the southwest facade use distinct light scoops to pull in eastern sunlight and minimize harsher western light during school hours.

Bringing It All Together with Snaptrude

Once you have a good grasp on an initial daylighting strategy, you'll want to begin making it a reality. One of the best and quickest ways to realize your daylight-optimized design is with Snaptrude. 

Using the Program Brief Import feature, you can import a program brief and instantly begin massing and organizing your spaces to optimize daylighting on your site. Then, Snaptrude's Sun Path and Shadow Analysis features let you visualize how sunlight interacts with your design, on any given day or time of year. 

Just set your site location, choose a specific date and time, and watch as sunlight illuminates your building in real-time. You’ll then have the opportunity to easily and quickly refine your design concept, fenestration, and shading strategies to your liking.