Watch the latest in a series of cross-disciplinary daylight conversations

The Daylight Award Community

NANET MATHIASEN, PhD, Architect and Researcher at the Institute of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, DK

&

MICHAEL J. BALICK, Vice President, Director and Senior Philecology Curator, Institute of Economic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden, US

MORE THAN AN AWARD

Community of researchers, architects, educators and students, bringing new knowledge, innovation and applications of daylight.

What is
The Daylight Award?

The Daylight Award honors and supports daylight research and daylight in architecture.

It acknowledges and encourages scientific knowledge and practical application of daylight, which interlink disciplines that are usually addressed in separated, monocultural spheres, professional circles or practices.

The Daylight Award strives to raise a holistic understanding of daylight, and increase its positive impact on life.

The nominations for The Daylight Award 2024 are closed. If you have missed nominating your candidate, you are welcome to send your nomination for The Daylight Award 2026.

The Daylight Award Laureates

THE DAYLIGHT AWARD 2022 — DAYLIGHT IN ARCHITECTURE

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara co-founded Grafton Architects in 1978. They are Fellows of the RIAI, International Honorary Fellows of the RIBA and elected members of Aosdána, the eminent Irish Art organisation. Teaching at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin from 1976 to 2002, they were appointed Adjunct Professors at UCD in 2015. They have been Visiting Professors at EPFL, Lausanne from 2010 – 2011, held the Kenzo Tange Chair at GSD Harvard in 2010 and the Louis Kahn chair at Yale in the Autumn of 2011. Currently, they are Professors at the Accademia di Archittettura, Mendrisio, Switzerland. In 2018, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were the Curators of the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2016, Grafton Architects were honoured by being awarded the inaugural RIBA International Prize for the Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima, Peru. In 2020 they have won the RIBA Royal Gold Medal and in the same years Shelley and Yvonne have been selected as the 2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates.

THE DAYLIGHT AWARD 2022 — DAYLIGHT RESEARCH

Anna
Wirz-Justice

Anna Wirz-Justice, PhD, is a neurobiologist and Professor emerita at the Centre for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Basel. At the NIMH with Thomas Wehr, MD, she carried out the first sleep phase advance experiment in a bipolar patient. Anna introduced light therapy to Europe, and studied not only Seasonal Affective Disorder but also depression during pregnancy, borderline personality disorder, and dementia. The field’s first treatment manual for clinicians, Chronotherapeutics for Affective Disorders was published together with Francesco Benedetti and Michael Terman. Anna is a former president of the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms and the Swiss Society for Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine, and Chronobiology. She has collaborated with artists, and with architects to apply circadian principles in design.

PREVIOUS LAUREATES

The attention brought to the importance of daylight in human health flagged up the whole relationship between neuroscience and architecture in general

 

— Russell Foster, 2020 Daylight Research Laureate

JUHA LEIVISKÄ

The Daylight Award for Architecture 2020

Finnish Architect and Designer

RUSSELL FOSTER

The Daylight Award for Research 2020

Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford

HENRY PLUMMER

The Daylight Award for Lifetime Achievement 2020

Architect, Photographer & Writer

HIROSHI SAMBUICHI

The Daylight Award for Architecture 2018

Architect and Founder of Sambuichi Architects

GREG WARD

The Daylight Award for Research 2018

Consultant for Anyhere Software and Senior Member of Technical Staff – Research at Dolby Laboratories, Inc.

STEVEN HOLL

The Daylight Award for Architecture 2016

Architect and Principal of Steven Holl Architects, with offices in New York City and Beijing

MARILYNE ANDERSEN

The Daylight Award for Research 2016

Professor of Sustainable Construction Technologies and Dean of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL)
MEET OUR DISTINGUISHED JURY

Our jury represent the highest possible level of expertise in the field of daylight

The jury represents relevant and comprehensive knowledge of the international scientific and architectural world.
In terms of merit, recognition and knowledge, the members are expected to be outstanding and highly respected by the international community.

The jury comprises at least six and no more than nine members. The jury should have members from at least three different countries and should not have more than two members from the same country.

What does daylight mean to you? What does daylight mean to you? What does daylight mean to you? What does daylight mean to you?

The following reflections are shared by people in our daylight community.

What does daylight mean to you?

 

DAYLIGHT REFLECTIONS

Daylight as well as artificial light is shared by everyone across the globe, yet as light changes rather quietly without a notice or a sound, we often forget to appreciate its unique qualities. My fascination with fleeting moments of light and their connection to space led me to my interest in design, and now I question how the design world contributes to the data and science of light and space.

— Yunni Cho

SELECTED DAYLIGHT COMMUNITY TESTIMONIALS

The community around daylight first and foremost excists trough the tremendious work done by the world’s leading scientist, professors and architects. Here we shed light on some of them.

EXPLORE

PRESS / MEDIA

Download press releases and images, in connection to The Daylight Award Laureates.

Here you can copy or download press releases and images.

NEWS / SOCIAL MEDIA