Personal Connection

During my research, I realized this project was motivated by my personal experience. I once lived in a large loft with tall ceilings and spacious rooms. I lived there for only a few months because my bedroom had no window.

This might sound strange, but it's common in New York City. Many lofts have windowless rooms, and countless people live in apartments with minimal natural light.

My experience clarified why windows matter.

Unfortunately, the more natural light you have, the wealthier you tend to be. New York's housing crisis is complex, and I don't have all the answers. Beyond socioeconomics, my project brings awareness to natural light and how it shapes human well-being in interior spaces.

1194

Art of Glass

Stained glass became one of Gothic cathedrals' most transformative features during the mid-12th century, fundamentally changing how people learned about religion. These illuminated windows served as visual biblical sermons that may have impacted congregations even more powerfully than priests' spoken words.

The creation process began with artisans drawing life-sized cartoons as blueprints. Glass was produced by heating sand and potash to nearly 3000 degrees. While molten, metallic oxides were added for color—copper produced green or blue-green, cobalt created deep blue, and gold yielded wine-red or violet. The colored glass was blown and flattened into sheets.

Once cooled, pieces were laid on the cartoon and cracked with hot irons into rough shapes, then refined through grozing—carefully chipping away excess glass until achieving the precise shape needed. Artists sometimes painted details using a dark mixture of iron filings and ground glass suspended in wine or urine to block light and define figures' features.

By the 14th century, silver stain paint emerged, producing yellow tones from pale lemon to deep orange depending on thickness and firing duration. Finished panels were fitted into H-shaped lead strips called cames, which prevented colors from blending when viewed from afar. After soldering and waterproofing with putty, panels were secured in iron armatures to create the completed window.

1901

Tenement House Act

New York's tenement housing crisis centered fundamentally on access to light and air through windows. Before any regulation, pre-law tenements (pre-1879) crammed families into apartments where only one room had windows—most living spaces remained completely dark and airless.

The 1879 Tenement House Act attempted reform by prohibiting windowless rooms and requiring all spaces have windows facing streets, yards, or air shafts. This created the infamous "dumbbell" design. However, these air shafts proved disastrous: too narrow to provide meaningful light or ventilation, they became garbage dumps and fire hazards. Adjacent apartment windows sat so close together that privacy vanished entirely.

Real progress came with the 1901 Tenement House Act, which mandated that all rooms have genuine window access to light and air. Corner locations became preferred because dual street frontages ensured proper window exposure—unlike narrow "dumbbell" buildings squeezed between neighbors. After decades of windowless rooms and inadequate ventilation, the 1901 law finally guaranteed tenement residents the basic human necessity of natural light and fresh air in every room.

1920's

Le Forth Point

International Style emerged in early 1920s Europe as a response to World War I's devastation, becoming the defining modern architectural movement of the 20th century. Founded by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, it emphasized industrial materials (steel, concrete, glass), minimal ornament, and machine-age precision.

Le Corbusier's "Five Points of A New Architecture" established core principles: free plans, free facades, ribbon windows, columns, and roof terraces. The most important aspect of ribbon windows was to blur the boundary between exterior and interior and emphasize the building's link to nature. They were the fourth point in Le Corbusier's system.

International Style symbolized industrial advancement and modern living—embodied in Le Corbusier's dictum: "a house is a machine for living." After WWII, it became America's unofficial corporate architecture and spread globally, particularly influencing Latin America and Asia before declining in the 1960s.

1930's

Rise of Sanatoriums

Between the mid-1800s and mid-1900s, Europe developed specialized sanatoria where patients accessed outdoor activity, exercise routines, and nutritious meals. These therapeutic retreats first appeared in Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. The emphasis on hygiene intensified following the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920 and rising tuberculosis rates.

The modernist movement of the 1920s and '30s elevated functionality and health to the forefront of architectural thinking. Buildings designed to keep people healthy became hallmarks of the movement, with windows emerging as crucial healing tools. Architects maximized natural light through large, strategically positioned glazing—understanding that sunlight possessed genuine therapeutic power against tuberculosis.

Alvar Aalto's 1932 Sanatorium Paimio exemplifies this philosophy. The building's most striking feature is its expansive ribbon windows—long horizontal bands of glass that flood patient rooms with healing sunlight throughout the day. The crisp white structure, resembling a ship anchored among Finnish pines, connects with nature through these continuous windows and expansive balconies. Aalto positioned windows to capture optimal southern light, recognizing that constant sun exposure and fresh air were not amenities but medical necessities. These became the building's organizing principles rather than aesthetic afterthoughts.

1977

Seeing Yourself See

Light and Space artist Robert Irwin's Scrim veil—Black rectangle—Natural light, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1977), which first debuted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1977 and reappeared 35 years later in summer 2013.

Comprises just three materials—a semi-translucent white scrim, a black aluminum beam, and a painted black line—that transform the fourth-floor gallery into an indoor abstracted landscape. The scrim, adjacent the left edge of the window and suspended from ceiling to 5 feet 6 inches above the floor across the 117-foot length, is anchored by the three-inch-thick aluminum beam and complemented by a matching three-inch black line painted around the gallery's perimeter at the same height.

Creating shifting horizons that make the space feel larger than it is while meticulously registering the constantly changing natural light from the gallery's single window source, which varies every second with time of day and weather conditions, fading and dimming from window to back wall in precise gradations across the scrim's white surface.

1980s

Access To Light

During the 1980s, research established that window access and natural light exposure are fundamental requirements for mental health, not aesthetic amenities. Alfred J. Lewy's 1987 study revealed that sunlight—twenty to two hundred times brighter than indoor light—is the only light source intense enough to regulate human circadian rhythms and suppress melatonin production. Artificial lighting remains insufficient for circadian regulation, while natural daylight through windows provides adequate stimulation when individuals are positioned close to window sources.

The 1987 American Psychiatric Association studies demonstrated that morning light advanced delayed circadian rhythms in depressed patients, while research on normal subjects showed even subclinical seasonal symptoms responded to increased natural light. Sudden disruptions to light schedules increased psychiatric crisis presentations, underscoring human vulnerability to inconsistent natural light patterns.

British physicians Finnegan, Pickering, and Burge found sealed air-conditioned buildings produced three to four times higher rates of lethargy, headaches, and depression compared to naturally ventilated buildings with windows. Symptoms remained elevated throughout entire days lacking adequate natural light. Experts recognized natural light's importance but lacked implementation guidance, leaving millions in sealed environments experiencing population-level psychiatric harm through chronic circadian disruption.

Today

Light in Interior

Research over the past fifteen years demonstrates that natural light ranks as one of the most valued features in interior spaces. A 2010 Harvard Business Review study identified it as the number one office perk employees seek, while Interface's Human Spaces research found that 44% of employees favor natural light above all other natural features.

Biophilic design goes beyond adding plants to rooms. It recognizes humanity's evolutionary connection to nature and our deep psychological need for natural environments. When we position plants near windows, particularly in urban settings, we blur the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, creating direct connections with living systems that provide immediate sensory engagement and trigger stress-reducing responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified this demand for natural light in interior space, particularly in residential markets. A Marvin study revealed that 77% of homebuyers are willing to pay premium prices for natural sunlight, elevating light from a mere preference to a top priority that directly influences purchasing decisions.

Resources

• Stained Glass Windows of Chartres Cathedral
• Paimio Sanatorium - Alvar Aalto
• Tenement House Act of 1901
• Housing Density and Crowding
• Robert Irwin at Whitney
• International Style Architecture
• Natural Light Benefits in Office Design
• Alternative Ribbon Windows
• Sixty Years of Interior Design Trends
• Daylighting Performance Metrics
• Human Circadian Rhythm
• Best Time of Day to Practice
• Circadian Rhythms and the Brain
• Designing for Happiness and Health
• Glass Partitions and Open Floor Plans
• Evolution of Biophilic Design