Light is the silent variable of space: you do not see it, you feel it. When an office is tiring – when people leave at the end of the day with heavy eyes, struggle to concentrate after lunch, prefer to settle near the windows even when there are free desks elsewhere – the cause is often to do with lighting. Space is not neutral: the quality of light enables or hinders work, and it is designed, not patched up.
Natural light as a design parameter
Daylight is not an added comfort: it is a condition that regulates attention and the ability to sustain cognitive work over the course of the day. Its actual availability at the workstations depends on the depth of the floor plan, the orientation of the building and the quality of the solar shading. A large space with big windows can turn out to be poorly lit if the floor plan is too deep or the shading is fixed and oversized. It is a variable that is read before defining the layout – and one that directly influences the arrangement of the work settings.
Colour temperature and activity: a precise match
Artificial light in the office is almost always treated as a single parameter: a certain number of lux distributed across the whole surface. The result is a visually flat space that supports neither concentration nor conversation. Designing light by work setting instead means calibrating each area to its function. A focus zone requires neutral or cool light, direct, with good control of glare on the screen. An informal meeting area works with warm, indirect light, which reduces formality and supports a prolonged conversation. A reception area wants accents that orient those arriving. These are lighting choices.
Visual comfort as a performance factor
Visual fatigue accumulates without people attributing it to light: it shows up as a drop in attention, headache, difficulty reading on screen in the afternoon. Controlling glare – both direct and reflected on the screens – and choosing sources with a good colour rendering index reduces this load. In the survey we use to synthesise a team's needs, environmental comfort – light included – is one of the dimensions measured systematically: not because it is obvious, but because it is one of those that people rarely describe explicitly, yet which emerges clearly in the patterns of the typical day.
And in production?
Light is not a topic for the office alone. In a warehouse, natural light – skylights, sheds, glazed façades – changes the day of those working on the floor, and affects safety and attention. We discuss it in Attracting and retaining people who work in production.