2024 - RE: reclaiming daylight

Creating a network of urban rooftop parks. Turning non-spaces into spaces with the simple addition of modular constructions that allow communities to define paths, make spaces to wander and play, to shelter, to connect with their local community, and most importantly spend time outside taking in the innumerable benefits of daylight. Reframing rooftops as the topography of a flat city. Reclaiming public access to daylight lost due to urban development. Research reveals how daily and annual light exposure affects our circadian rhythm, moods, mental health, connection with nature, and ability to connect with one another. Significant developments in electric illumination aim to manipulate spectral power distribution to improve our experience of light indoors. But as lighting designers, it is vital we always start by acknowledging that the first and best solution to a lack of light exposure will always be to spend time outside. Daylight is irreplaceable. As the profession that understands this most viscerally our contribution to the design of the built environment should be to facilitate and promote time spent outdoors.

As cities grow, buildings multiply. Many of these buildings privatise not only the land they occupy but also the daylight that once filled their volume. This project addresses how we can reclaim some of this daylight and bring it back into the public realm. Our context is Copenhagen where the availability of daylight varies enormously throughout the year. In winter months it can be extremely difficult to find ways to bring daylight exposure into everyday routines. A compounding factor in this context is the flatness of the terrain. There are few opportunities to get above the canopy of the city, to reach up to the light and gain a view to the horizon. This project envisions the buildings of the city itself as a form of elevated terrain that can provide this missing access to daylight across the year.

(Three Circles) – Political, Health, Societal

P) Although daylight is a natural phenomenon that is a resource that can’t be owned, tall buildings can privatize this, limit access to open skies and benefits of spending time outdoors.

H) Studies suggest that access to sunlight can improve mood, reduce symptoms of depression, and boost energy levels.

S) The lack of neighborhood gathering spaces hinders connection. This isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness and create a deficit of community spirit.

Design Proposal

Reused materials come together to revive rooftop spaces. Scaffolding tubes, couplers, and clamps are repurposed at a smaller, more human scale to create frames for dividers, shade, and seating structures. Reused semi-transparent material from construction sites and city advertisements are stretched across the structures to create vertical and horizontal surfaces. The design prioritises easy installation, customizable configurations, and materiality that interacts with daylight to create visually interesting outdoor rooftop spaces that invite people to spend time in these daylit canopies of the city.

Structure

Scaffolding tubes are secured in the fence feet, making it mere minutes to set up. Where the tubes intersect, couplers support to create a secure structure. Recycled polypropylene (PP) and nylon fabric panels are wrapped around the tubes and secured with clamps. Allowing communities to define the space by how they want to use it. Paths draw you through the space providing moments where a view is hidden and then revealed as you move around a corner. The material can be transformed into a shaded area, a hammock, a small tent, or even a divider to create separate areas within the shaded space, maximizing its functionality for movement and gathering and spending time outside in daylight.

Material solution

The semi-transparent materials encountered on construction sites and in city advertisements are often comprised of PP and nylon. These materials are ideal for re-use providing a dual benefit: they permit the passage of natural light and airflow while also creating structure that can provide shade and protection from the wind. Reusing materials from the city relates the rooftop structures back to their context while giving these single-use materials a second life. The variety of colours will filter daylight in different ways throughout the space creating shifting dynamics as you explore the structure.

Ownership through modularity

At the turn of the seasons, a community gets together to reconfigure their rooftop providing for seasonal variation, adding shelter from prevailing winds in winter and opening up to the views, and creating shade in summer. The modularity of this system and the simple construction allow communities to come together. These events mark the seasons, they are an opportunity for people to collaborate, make collective decisions, and take ownership of their shared spaces.