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Natural lighting, also known as daylighting, is a technique that efficiently brings natural light into your home using exterior glazing (windows, skylights, etc.), thereby reducing artificial lighting requirements and saving energy. Natural lighting has been proven to increase health and comfort levels for building occupants.
Natural lighting plays an important role in the comfort, health, and mood of the human, but it varies depending on where we are. In architecture, it is integral to the design of a building, it brings added value.
There are different types of natural light that come into a building, here are some of them:
Diffuse and uniform light coming from larger and more regular openings, for example: strip windows around a room;
Direct light from the direct sunlight at the desired location on the floor or other surface;
Zenith light from the ceiling like a skylight;
Reflected light from any surface and redirected into space.
Blue arrow: sunlight reflected from outside to inside.
Green arrows: direct light entering the interior, the amount of openings allows uniform light in the space.
Zenith light: roof opening allowing uniform light with both sunny and cloudy skies.
Resource: https://idinterdesign.ca/limportance-de-la-lumiere-naturelle-en-architecture/
Understand the importance of natural lighting, especially on mental health of human, it starts to have more and more lighting application for healthcare sector
The human being recognizes in the sky an element of vital importance, a global ancestral language that binds man to the outdoor environment.
Light is, in this sense, the key element to maintain a good psycho-physical balance during our days.
The outdoor stimuli such as light or dark helps us to regulate the biological clocks and keep us synchronized with the alternation day/night. Almost all the functions of the human body vary according to these rhythms, known as circadian cycles. The clocks that rules the circadian rhythms are controlled by the brain, are regulated by the sun through the visual system and deeply conditioning our health and well-being.
Today our rhythms have been suddenly reversed, during this new everyday routine passed within our homes walls is important to maintain a good quality of sleep, which influences all our mind functions: mood, concentration, attention, stress, etc. .The natural light is closely related to the production of melatonin which have a great influence on our wellbeing.
Improve patient experience in your hospital, with a unique research-based lighting system. HealWell uses innovative illumination to support healthy sleep, alleviate anxiety, and lift mood in patients and staff.
Science shows that light has a significant impact on our health and well-being. Not only does it affect our mood, but it also controls our natural biorhythms. By mimicking natural daylight patterns in hospitals, where patients are indoors all day, artificial illumination can support a healthy sleep-wake cycle. HealWell has been designed specifically to achieve this by automatically changing the brightness and hue of the light throughout the day, reflecting the conditions outside.
The technology was put to the test in the cardiology department of the Maastricht University Medical Center, in the Netherlands. The study measured sleep patterns, mood, and other variables in patients staying in HealWell-equipped rooms. To enable a comparison, the same measurements were taken from patients who were in rooms with conventional lighting.
Resource:
https://www.lighting.philips.com.sg/systems/packaged-offerings/office-and-industry/healwell
The tests confirmed that light has a positive effect on patients. Compared to rooms with conventional lighting, measurements in rooms equipped with HealWell showed: