Light has the power to define space, to create presence, and to deeply affect our spirit. Sunlight connects a place to its location with respect to the solar system and its unique coordinates on earth. Through light, the passage of time is revealed in a perpetually dynamic play of color, intensity, and movement.

The environmental imperative to address climate change through a reduction of fossil fuel use has renewed interest in the quantifiable aspects of daylighting in building. This can be challenging in urban sites where key contributors to daylighting such as building orientation, form, and floor depths may be given conditions. At the same time, re-densifying these underutilized properties through adaptive reuse and urban infill are critical to community redevelopment and supports growth management strategies that reduce automobile use and preserve existing natural areas and productive agricultural land.

This beginning design studio used a close study of light, in all of its measurable and immeasurable qualities, as an armature for addressing constrained sites. The studio unfolded through three assignments of increasing complexity as site and program parameters, both hypothetical and real, provided realistic constraints and rich opportunities.