Capturing the daylight dividend in buildings: why and how?

This article reviews the literature on daylighting, the design of buildings to use light from the Sun. Daylighting supports human health and activities and reduces energy demand. Current research suggests health, productivity, and economic benefits from daylighting. Good daylighting techniques include configuring buildings properly, elongating buildings along an east-west axis, locating critical visual tasks near the building's perimeter, bringing the light in high, admitting daylight from more than one side of a space, controlling direct sunlight, using light-colored interior surfaces, and locating workstations and computer screens perpendicular to windows. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.