We spend a worryingly disproportionate amount of time indoors. To put a number on it, according to the UK government, the average person is between four walls for 80-90% of their life. While this of course includes things like going to school, going to work, shopping and taking different modes of transport, it is a figure that is bound to shock us. 

You would be forgiven for asking ‘what’s the big deal?’ After all, we can illuminate a space with the flick of a switch. But that’s artificial light, rather than natural. It is the equivalent of feeding yourself purely on sugar, neglecting vegetables, and expecting to remain healthy – simply not possible.

We’ve written at length about the many benefits of natural light, but it’s important to stress right here just how significant and positive it can be. We are happier, healthier and more productive in its presence. To illustrate that fact, workers regularly exposed to natural light take 6.5% fewer days off, report an 84% reduction in sight-related headaches, and are even 15% more creative.

Based on natural light’s many benefits and our currently limited time in its presence, you might be wondering how to maximise natural light in a building, such as your own home. In this article, we hope to provide a few suggestions so that even if you can’t spend any more time outside, it can certainly feel like you are, whilst also enjoying the many health benefits associated with doing so.

Let’s be bold in our first move, installing something that will crown your property with style and flood the space below with light – a glass roof.

Install a glass roof

It is impossible to overstate just how transformative the addition of overhead glazing can be when incorporated into an architectural project. Whereas a traditional window welcomes natural light from one direction through a relatively small aperture, a glass roof encourages an even illumination, distributing the light far more equally across the space. 

Where a glass roof really comes into its own, in our opinion, is when it is installed in central parts of the home or commercial property that typically struggle with natural light. Illustrating that fact perfectly, we recently took part in a renovation project of Senate House, located in the heart of London’s in the heart of Bloomsbury, London. Specifically, we helped to breathe new life into the building’s basement that had – for a long time – been a gloomy bin storage area. By installing an extensive serpentine glass roof, the space is now bright, airy and fully welcoming to the educational personnel who occupy the building and can now sit in this naturally lit area and enjoy a coffee and a break from scholarly life.

Choose reflective surfaces

Once you have the light inside your home or commercial building, it is important that it doesn’t get lost by being absorbed by dark and even matte material. Here, reflective surfaces are your friends – be they marble kitchen counter tops, antique mirrors, bright white or light-coloured walls, and glossy finishes. That might all sound a little bit dazzling, maybe even a bit chincy, but in reality you are making the most of the natural light, allowing it to reach the furthest corners of your home or commercial property.

Epitimizing the bright decor that works hand-in-hand with our bespoke glazing would have to be the project we completed for the Panagram building on London’s famous Goswell Road. Being surrounded by tall central-London architecture and facing north-east, it’s vital that this building makes the most of any natural light coming through its windows. Bright yellows, glossy bullnose tiles, a shiny floor and even the houseplants, all contribute to the passage of light. The result? A modern oasis that won the 2022 FX Award for Best Large Workplace, was shortlisted for the 2021 Mixology Awards, and its architects – Buckley Gray Yeoman – won Building Design’s Architect of the Year Award in 2021. You could say that the results simply speak for themselves…

Reduce bulky obstructions in front of windows

Installing a glass roof and changing your decor might not be in your plans for 2025 – after all, both can easily feel like Herculean tasks – but you can still maximise the light in your home with this simple step: remove any bulky obstructions from in front of your windows. Large furniture, dense curtains, or a jungle of indoor plants can all lower the light levels in a room. To counteract these things, you might cut back on the plant material (or simply reposition them) and replace those curtains with a stylish-but-simple blind system – perhaps one that reacts automatically to the time of day and preferred light levels or one that you can control using your phone or other smart device.

Aside from the bulky items that can obscure the passage of natural light, a build-up of dirt and water residue can also lower the illumination. It is tricky to put a figure on how much light is lost exactly, we think it is still important to clean your glazing regularly or – if you are so inclined – research self-cleaning glass that can take care of the job for you!

Install a glass wall

Much like the previously-mentioned glass roof, a glass wall is – we think – a very powerful architectural feature that removes an opaque obstruction and replaces it with a transparent partition. The thing that makes a glass wall special, however, is that you can choose to place it on both the outside and the inside of your home or commercial property. On the outside, you increase the amount of natural light entering your building’s envelope, but with an internal glass wall you help to illuminate an area that might otherwise have been gloomy. Take a ground-floor north-facing living room, for example. Your only option, currently, might be to make the windows bigger. There is, then, a limit of how much light you can bring in. But, if you place a glass wall between the south-facing kitchen and that north-facing living room, you utilise the south side’s light, making the most of it throughout your space.

The installation of interior glass walls is exactly what we did at the St Ethelburga Centre. Being a heritage property, it was far more difficult to change the exterior of the building, so the architects simply chose not to. Instead, the addition of interior glass walls had two important benefits: firstly, light was allowed to move through the space unobstructed; and secondly, the space could be divided up for different purposes without dividing up the light too.

Consider a glazed extension

In the depths of winter, when the skies have remained gloomy for many days, your building might not be bathed in the same levels of natural light that it was in spring, summer and even autumn. If this is your situation right now, we cannot recommend a glazed extension enough. This additional room brings you out into the garden, allowing you to feel at one with nature, but it also – often – consists of both vertical and horizontal glass, making this the brightest and best spot in your whole house. There is, however, one important consideration when building a glazed extension – being such an inviting space, you might have to share it! Fear not: we simply recommend that you build a second extension, or – better yet – one for each of your home’s occupants!

Conclusion

Natural light is one of the most important aspects of architectural design. To overlook it is to overlook both its aesthetic qualities (transforming colours and textures) as well as its many health-boosting benefits. Whether you have the budget and inclination to install a beautiful glass wall, or simply choose to uplift your decor to make the most of the light, there are many steps that you can take to make the space brighter. We might spend up to 90% of our time indoors according to the UK government, but with the help of bespoke glazing specialists, you can make sure that 90% is as beautiful and beneficial as possible.