| Abstract | A 2004 CIE report introduced the concept of a necessary daily light dose that contemporary life in industrialized countries does not deliver, but to which better use of architectural daylighting could make a valuable contribution. Nearly a decade has passed since the last substantive reviews of the health and well-being effects of daylight and windows, making it time for a renewed examination of the literature. Moreover, there has been scant attention paid to the role of daylight in residential buildings, which is the focus here. This review identified three broad processes through which residential windows and skylights can affect people in their homes, for good and ill: visual processes, acting primarily through light detected at the retina by rods and cones; non-visual ocular processes, acting primarily through light detected at the retina by intrinsically photoreceptive retinal ganglion cells; and processes occurring in the skin. This qualitative review revealed that there is no shortage of research questions facing photobiologists, psychologists, architects, lighting designers and others in the broad lighting community, whether their interests are general or specific to daylighting for residences. The report includes a detailed research agenda aimed at furthering the use of daylighting and windows in the service of human well-being. |
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