Daylight
Symposium
Stage

Since 2005, the Daylight Symposium has been dedicated to exploring the importance of daylight in creating healthy, resilient buildings. From this stage, more than 40 recognized and emerging voices in the fields of daylight research, education, and practice will share new knowledge and innovative applications related to the use of daylight in building design, particularly focusing on the health benefits for individuals and the environment.

The main theme of this year’s Daylight Symposium is `Bridging Research and Practice.’

Speakers on this stage will address the following topics: New applications of daylight, with a focus on benefits for people and the environment, Best practices for architectural daylighting with regard to connecting people with nature, tools, metrics, legislation and systems for evaluating the daylight quality and performance, the role of daylight during pandemics and beyond, and the future of daylight education.
As in the past, the goal of this year’s Daylight Symposium is to encourage the sharing of scientific knowledge and practical applications by interlinking disciplines that are usually addressed in separated spheres and professional circles.

Meet The Moderators

The Daylight Symposium stage will be moderated by Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon and Director of the Institute for Health in the Built Environment, and Martha Thorne, architectural academic, curator, editor, and author, as well as the former Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and currently the Dean of the School of Architecture at IE University in Madrid.

Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg

Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg is a professor of architecture at the University of Oregon. He directs the Institute for Health in the Built Environment and seeks to facilitate integration amongst a broad network of researchers and practitioners on issues concerning health, comfort, and sustainability in the human ecosystem in order to support human, community and planetary health.

He has completed over $17M in funded research on topics of energy and indoor environmental quality for organizations such as the National Science Foundation, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Energy. Kevin has also consulted on several hundred new construction and major renovation projects with architects and engineers. Many of these projects have been recognized by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment Top 10 Awards.
Martha Thorne

Martha Thorne is Dean of the IE School of Architecture & Design, at the innovative, international, private IE University in Spain. She served as Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize from 2005 to March 2021.

Her main interests focus on two themes: 1) how we can make the city of the future liveable and responsive to everyone and 2) innovation in architectural education. From 1995 to 2005, she was curator of the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has written numerous articles on contemporary architecture. She served on the Board of Directors of the International Archive of Women in Architecture and the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts. She has participated on juries for the new National Museum of Chinese Art, Zaryadye Park in Moscow, and the ArcVision – Women and Architecture Prize, among many others. She received a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor of arts degree in urban affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She pursued further studies at the London School of Economics. She has been elected honorary fellow of the RIBA (Hon FRIBA) and COAM (Professional Association of Architects of Madrid).

Light &
Health

Exposure to light has an important effect on human health and well-being by modulating circadian rhythms and sleep, as well as neuroendocrine and cognitive functions.

Current light-exposure patterns do not sufficiently stimulate many individuals, however. Today, we better understand the possibilities of adjusting the lighting to promote ideal physical and mental health and performance.
Computational
Design

New research and ongoing developments in the field of building performance simulations present new opportunities and challenges to building professionals involved in daylighting design. Involving daylight analysis in the design process is a technical and communication challenge that new technologies can help us overcome.

How can we democratize access to high-quality daylight simulations, and is it possible for new methods, tools and algorithms to lead better daylight design?
Daylight in
Architecture

Daylighting strategies and architectural design strategies are inseparably linked. Views, reflections, design approaches and projects from architects around the world will be presented to highlight the best architectural daylighting practices that consider spaces for light to inhabit and to highlight an awareness of – and contact to – our natural surroundings.
Pandemics

Since the spring 2020, the pandemic has forced millions of people to work, learn and live within the four walls of their homes. The home has been transformed into many people’s workplaces and classrooms overnight, raising our awareness of the home environment or just the spaces we occupy.

What have we learned and what will be important in the future?
Glare and
Controls

Glare is a negative sensation and a result of bright window areas producing annoyance, discomfort or loss of visual performance and visibility. This can be resolved by using shading devices, but glare is also dependent on individual perception, context and preferences, as well as if you are at home or at work.

How can we provide an indoor environment that can support individual preferences, as well as find a way to operate the shading devices in our buildings?
Contact to
the Outdoors

Views of the outdoors provide visual connection with the surroundings so we can perceive the local environment, weather changes and the time of day. This visual information can relieve the fatigue associated with long periods of being indoors. All occupants of a space should have an opportunity for the refreshment and relaxation afforded by a change of scene and focus.
Daylight Education

While daylight has been used as the primary source of light in buildings for centuries, daylighting is still a difficult discipline to approach, understand and master. What level of knowledge on this subject will future architects and building professionals possess?

What are the implications of daylight education in the real world? And how can we help future generation of professionals use daylight in buildings in the best possible way?

- Daylight Symposium
- Pandemics
Till Roenneberg
Professor LMU Munich

Till Roenneberg is professor emeritus at the Medical School of the LMU Munich, a former President of the European Society for Rhythms Research (EBRS), and is currently President of the World Federation of Societies for Chronobiology (WFSC).

After studying Biology in Munich (LMU) and London (University College), he worked at Harvard University. In his research for the Human Sleep Project, Till investigates the human internal clock and sleep in the real world. During his career, he has initiated and directed several large national and international research networks and received several international research prizes. He is the author of two books, Internal Time (Harvard University Press, 2012) and The Right to Sleep (DTV, 2019), and has published more than 200 papers that have been cited more than 20,000 times.
- Daylight Symposium
- Pandemics
- Contact to outdoors
Ayesha Batool
Doctoral Researcher University of Nottingham

Ayesha Batool is a doctoral candidate in architecture at the University of Nottingham. As an architect, she uses a human-centric approach, focused on improving wellbeing and empowering local communities.

She has over a decade of experience in practice and research in Pakistan, the UK and the US as a Fulbright Scholar. Her current research takes a multi-method approach, aiming to bridge the gaps in our current knowledge about window view preferences and the behavioural responses that result from these preferences. In addition to her research, Ayesha advises on the boards of the Mian Muhammad Bukhsh Trust and the RIBA Education Group in the East Midlands.
- Daylight Symposium
- Computational design
Franz Forsberg
Sustainable Environmental Design Specialist dataTrees

Franz Forsberg's work as a designer aims to bridge the gap between architects and engineers, for the benefit of society.

Focusing on sustainable environmental design and circularity, Franz is the cofounder of dataTrees, a Norwegian company that delivers products to the AEC to facilitate a more sustainable and performative architecture.
- Daylight Symposium
- Computational design
J. Alstan Jakubiec
Assistant Professor University of Toronto

J. Alstan Jakubiec is a building scientist, educator, and architect at the University of Toronto specializing in building performance simulation and post-occupancy evaluations.

He runs the Design for Climate and Comfort lab at U of T where he works with students to address daylighting, human comfort, health, and energy efficiency within buildings and urban areas. Alstan co-created the ClimateStudio and ALFA tools for calculating the daylighting and energy performance of buildings and cities as part of Solemma and actively develops new software tools as part of his research.
- Daylight Symposium
- Computational design
Alejandro Pacheco Diéguez
Digital Sustainability Co-ordinator White Arkitekter

Since 2014, Alejandro Pacheco Diéguez has worked as an architect and digital sustainability specialist. In all of his work, his focus is to help reduce the environmental impact of buildings by bringing environmental performance analysis closer to the workflow of architects.

Since 2019, he has used his research to develop a number of digital tools related to sustainability. As a team member at White Arkitekter in Stockholm, Alejandro has driven the development of a digital analysis toolkit that allows architects to get early stage indications on environmental aspects such as daylight, energy use, and microclimate.
- Daylight Symposium
- Glare & controls
Eleonora Brembilla
Assistant Professor Delft University of Technology

Dr. Eleonora Brembilla is an Assistant Professor in the Building Physics and Services group at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture, in The Netherlands.

Her expertise is in daylight modelling and monitoring, including annual daylight simulation, weather files, solar radiation data, and operational daylight performance. Her PhD thesis “Applicability of Climate-Based Daylight Modelling” tackled current daylight simulation practice and unveiled the uncertainties found in widespread daylight performance metrics. She is actively collaborating with industrial companies and with professional associations, such as the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA).