The Intrinsic Agent: Working with Light

MASTER’S THESIS, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Architecture’s intrinsic natural agent, light, is an elusive and mysterious figure in the process of architectural design. The very phenomenon that reveals to us the contents, materials, and proportions of a space is frequently a passive, incidental occupant. The Intrinsic Agent advocates for a greater engagement with light throughout the architectural design process for its communicative power, its ability to reinforce and reveal various larger project concepts and tectonic strategies. Knowledge from the fields of architectural lighting design, phenomenology, and optics (the physics of light) is combined and presented in the form of a methodological reference. The reference offers architects and students a loosely structured method of designing with light using three main elements: a system strategy, archetypes of light effect, and optic devices and their parameters. The reference can be used to analyse projects and generate systems of involving light in design using common terms, providing a foundation for discourse and development in this area.

 
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Part 1: The System Strategy

The system strategy is the common ground from which the suite of optic devices for a particular project is born. It must function as the working tool that the architect develops to focus their selection and tuning of optic devices. The system strategy can be grounded in a certain material, geometry, utility, or any combination of the three options.

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Part 2: The Archetypes of Light Effect

The archetypes of light manifestation are intended to categorically identify the various incidences of light information that we passively perceive on a daily basis. Some of these archetypes truncate information, some separate information, some concentrate information, and others duplicate information. The circumstances of their production are identified and explained.

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Part 3: Optic Devices and Their Parameters

This part of the index categorically isolates the various devices and their intrinsic parameters in order to showcase the variety and spectrum of effect that even the simplest device can produce. A series of drawings (shown in this section for the ‘diffuser’ optic device) follows the development of a base instance through the application of various relevant parameters.