Visual Delight in Architecture examines the many ways that our lives are enriched by the presence of natural daylight illumination and window views within our buildings. It makes the case that appropriately timed exposure to daylight is essential to our health and well-being, tied to the very genetic foundations of our physiology and cognitive function. It then goes on to help the reader appreciate the subtlety, beauty and pleasures of well-daylit spaces and attractive window views, and how these are woven into the fabric of our daily sensory experiences, and determined by the design of our buildings, cities, and cultural perspectives. The book is written to engage and challenge a variety of readers, including all forms of building and urban designers, plus anyone interested in human health and wellbeing, from medical researchers to the occupants of all types of buildings. Examples range in detail from common everyday experiences to the latest findings in cognitive research. An important goal of the book is integration across perspectives, such as helping designers to become more comfortable with the scientific basis of their work, and scientists more curious about the design implications of their research
Lisa Heschong is an architect and founding principal of the Heschong Mahone Group (HMG), a building sciences consulting firm, where she led groundbreaking research showing a relationship between daylight and student test scores, retail sales, and office worker performance. Heschong is the author of the classic Thermal Delight in Architecture, along with many technical publications about daylighting and energy efficiency in buildings. A graduate of UC Berkeley and MIT, she is a Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), and received the ARCC 2012 Haecker Award for Architectural Research. Heschong lives in Santa Cruz, California, with her husband, two horses, and a sailboat, where she never tires of watching the changing colors of the surrounding ocean and sky.
Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, PhD, Director, Institute for Health in the Built Environment; Professor of Architecture, University of Oregon
Margo Jones, FAIA, NCARB, LEED-AP, Founding Partner, Jones Whitsett Architects, Massachusetts
