Daven Patel

Advisor: Shawn Bailey 

A dramatic background featuring swirling fire and smoke, creating an intense and dynamic atmosphere.
The image displays two glowing horizontal panels, transitioning from blue to yellow on top and amber to yellow below. The structure resembles a building facade against a dark background, creating a mysterious glow.
To identify ways of hiding the light source, which created a sense of mystery for the viewer.
The image showcases three vertical panels: swirling yellow light on the left, a red-orange gradient with a geometric shape in the middle, and blurred yellow, blue, and red reflections on the right. The composition emphasizes vibrant colors and abstract forms.
Manipulating light with translucent and colourful materials can create moments of mystery, quirkiness and childhood nostalgia.
The image features three abstract panels with warm golden tones, including blurred shapes with yellow highlights, a red stripe with brown rectangles, and a translucent square with shimmering reflections. The composition emphasizes light and texture.
By controlling the placement of materials, one can influence the perceived importance of an object and the atmosphere of a space.
The image features two abstract panels: the left shows hexagonal shapes and a square frame projecting blue light, while the right includes vertical elements and white frames casting defined shadow patterns. Both panels focus on geometric shapes and light interplay.
To layer light phenomena is a key tool for designing intentionally with light.
The image displays four photos of a rotating lamp with textured, multi-faceted shades that adjust light direction, creating a warm glow. The lamp is mounted on a black tripod stand with adjustable arms and visible cables.
A 1:1 multi-faceted rotating lamp gives the subject full control of the quality and direction of the light produced and understands the scalability of light
The image features a snowy landscape with bare trees, a snow-covered path, and a colorized map of a park showing sun paths, trails, and facilities. It highlights Winnipeg's location about 10 km from the park.
This study will focus on winter light in the park. Light is going to be a large part of this place, but its main goal is to complement the existing uses of the land
The image features a snow-covered forest path, a prairie landscape with a snow-dusted path, and a stylized map with trails and points of interest. The map uses bold outlines and a vibrant color palette for an abstract feel.
This area of the park captures the vastness of the prairie sky and complex shadows of the forest.

Shedding Light on Spatial Connection

"It is essential to an architect to know how to see: I mean to see in a way the vision is not overpowered by rational analysis" – Luis Barragán

Light is a large part of our lives. Visually, it is how many of us navigate the world. As we rush through life we tend to overlook the fleeting moments that light offers us. Prompting the question: why do we go about our day without paying attention to our relationship with light?

This lack of attention to light is facilitated by the current design practice which often prioritizes utilitarian, task-oriented, and functional lighting in the built environment. This leads to flat lighting and, as Jun'ichirō Tanazaki puts it, “the evils of excessive illumination”1. Flat lighting and over-illumination eliminate shadows which removes contour and depth, making it harder to sense distances in space and disconnecting us from our surroundings2. This lighting approach is unbalanced as it focuses on function over personal experience.

This thesis explores how to strengthen the subjective experience of spaces through the thoughtful and intentional use of light. This study will use research and physical tests that incorporate multiple light phenomena to better understand the components needed to design spaces which prioritize the subjective experience of a space. The teachings from the research and tests will be applied to an architectural intervention in a natural prairie landscape. Prairie landscapes have vast open skies with many naturally occurring light phenomena, an ideal environment to study light. The goal of this work is to design an intervention that harnesses light to encourage participants to interact and immerse themselves in their surroundings. 

  1. Tanizaki, Jun'ichirō. In Praise of Shadows. Translated by Leete’s Island Books, Inc. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.
  2. Böhme, Gernot. "Light and Space: On the Phenomenology of Light." Dialogue and Universalism 24 (2014): 62-73.