Light and air
Light well
apartment buildingrow housing between party wallsofficebasement
A narrow vertical void inside a building, open or covered, that brings light and air to rooms that do not face the outside.
What it solves
It makes it possible to light and ventilate interior rooms in deep buildings or between party walls. In the tropics it also serves to draw hot air out at the top.
Today
Make it wide enough for its height and finish its walls in light colors that reflect light downward. Solve the drainage at the bottom.
Common mistake
Making it so narrow and dark that no light reaches the lower floors and it becomes a garbage dump.
Tomorrow
The bottom of the light well can be a small garden that receives rain and lets it soak in inside the building. When recycling buildings, opening one recovers unused rooms.
Where it comes from
- 1Ancient Egypt Egypt, Antiquity
It used light wells to light interior spaces. - 2Palace of Knossos Crete, Minoan Bronze Age
It combined light wells with high windows in a multi-level palace. - 3Traditional Chinese architecture China, of diffuse origin
The sky well (tianjing) opens the center of the house to light and rain.
Masters
- Antoni Gaudí Casa Batlló, Barcelona, Spain, 1906
He lines the light court with blue tiles, more intense at the top and lighter at the bottom, to spread daylight evenly on every floor. He shows that the color of the walls of a well decides how much light reaches the bottom.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Light and air
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.