Light

Form & Order

Light is vitally important to every one of us. In the design field we must take into account the importance that light has in a building. The objective of this project is to teach us how we can manipulate light entrance to a building by implementing different design methods and techniques.

The project consists of designing a chapel at SUNY Farmingdale to provide students with a spiritual place where they can go and meditate upon life and do some soul searching. Special considerations must be taken into account when determining the site location as it must become part of existing buildings and surrounding conditions. The chapel must also be place at a central location that can be easily seeing by students passing by. Sun angles must also be considered when determining which way the building will be facing in order to optimize lighting coming into the building.

Background Research

We did a background research of existing buildings that were specially designed to control and manipulate light entering the building. The building that I researched was Mount Angel Library designed by architect Alvar Aalto. The library very well designed in terms of applying different techniques to control light entering the building. Below are some pictures showing how light is controlled through various techniques.

On these photos we can see how light coming in is diverted by building a scoop, the bottom of the scoop is shaped like an eyebrow to prevent light from reflecting into circulation desk.

Below can see how the light is diverted and smoothly travel down.

Contextual Analysis

Circulation

Function

Building Heights

Spaces

Landscaping

Sun Angles

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

Site Selection

Upon evaluating various factors it was determined that the best location for the chapel will be where it is shown below. It fits well with the surrounding buildings and it's at a main location with a lot of pedestrian circulation on campus. The chapel will be facing directly into the sun to take advantage of the sunlight.