Poetic Daylight – a pavilion for the perception of daylight

Abstract

Daylight provides us with an understanding of time and space, specifying where we are in the world, every day. We delight in experiencing the changeability of daylight – from morning to evening perceiving how light and darkness affect the spaces surrounding us. This paper highlights daylight as one of the central elements in architecture, by emphasising its qualitative potentials: creating healthy, aesthetic, and poetic spaces. The setting for this study is a 1:1 pavilion, Poetic Daylight, built for the UIA Conference in Copenhagen. Presenting studies of scale models 1:10 and studies of the built 1:1 pavilion, this study lays out the possibilities and potentials in the use of scale models when designing spaces, with a focus on the qualitative appearances of daylight. Bearing the distinction laid out by Vitruvius in mind, i.e. firmitas, utilitas and venustas, the pavilion focuses on venustas (beauty or delight) in order to form spaces where the atmosphere and the beauty of daylight can be perceived and experienced. The Vitruvian concept of beauty, together with J. J. Gibson’s definition of the perception of an environment, constitutes the theoretical framework. The analysis and the description of the three different spaces in the pavilion relates to the theory on defining light as presented by Anders Liljefors in his compendium: “Seende och Ljusstrålning” where he describes seven variables of light and Sophus Frandsen’s definition of the four different kinds of shadows. The methodology involves the development of models, observations, and representations. This study shows that using 1:10 scale models in the design process to include qualitative aspects of daylight is practicable and effective, producing tangible and transferable knowledge that will influence the experience and perception of daylight in the built 1:1 pavilion, Poetic Daylight.