This marketing copy from a downtown luxury tower continues: “every aspect of the project’s design ensures the diffusion of light deep within the building’s plans.”  Another tower extolls the “art of life and light.”

These marketing teams know that light sells—even more so in cloud and rain-prone Seattle.  And science backs them up. It shows daylight’s benefits go beyond ‘feel good’ to being essential for human health. More than 10 years into a building boom unabated by COVID, neighbors of new downtown towers are being left in the dark by megatowers that optimize their own access to light at the expense of existing buildings.

Daylight planning is already accepted practice in the UK, EU and Asia and America is heading in this direction. New research recognizing the human and environmental health costs from lack of sunlight in the built environment has spurred new awareness. And the need has become even greater since Covid as millions worldwide are forced indoors and dependent on daylight available from their windows. 

To understand the issues compelling the US and Seattle to recognize this issue and enact standards, click here to read this Daylighting article.