Vail Symposium to discuss daylight and the importance of a view

Virginal Woolf wrote about the importance of “A Room of One’s Own” to address social injustices, and on Wednesday, Nancy Clanton expands on the topic through the Vail Symposium’s The Equity of Daylight: Shedding Light on the Importance of a Window at Vail Interfaith Chapel.

Clanton, CEO of Visibility Innovations, has worked extensively on national and international projects regarding EU guidelines on buildings and windows, advanced light projects impacting wildlife and dark sky initiatives. She collaborates with 42 other countries as our nation’s representative within the American National Standards Institute, which oversees standards and conformity assessment activities in the U.S. Within that realm, she is developing criteria for lighting and views worldwide.

“Everybody should have access to looking outside,” she said.

Wednesday, she will talk about how humans evolved, revolving their lives around daylight and being outside, and how research shows that employee productivity, student test scores and hospitalized patients’ health increase significantly when they’re situated next to windows with a view.

One study showed that employees are more focused, with a 6% better working memory and 5% better concentration, along with an increase in positive emotions and decrease in negative emotions. Another indicated a 7% to 12% increase in worker speed at a call center. Yet another revealed a 7% to 30% improvement on students’ math and reading scores. Studies also point to the health benefits of views, including better circadian rhythms, micro-biome and biophilia benefits, eye health and cognitive benefits such as cognitive mapping, memory and the ability for the mind to wander, which in this case, helps students and employees process information.

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She will also discuss view quality; as it turns out, access to daylight through a window isn’t enough; if employees stare out at a concrete wall, productivity doesn’t increase — views must include natural elements, like a garden, trees, sky, etc. Elements of a good view include: sky, sun, clouds, birds, distant landscape, plants, water and more. The best view includes a variety of layers, such as a close, ground plane that includes movement of people, water or animals; a horizon showcasing distant landscape; and the sky.

“Exposure to ‘greenery’ has consistently positive and broad public health impacts,” she said.

In fact, a National Nurses’ Health Study, which reviewed eight years’ worth of data, showed a 12% lower mortality rate for people who lived within a block of tree cover.

“(This information) has been around for a long time, so why aren’t we taking it more seriously,” she said.

Clanton will refer to Lisa Heschong’s book: “Visual Delight in Architecture: Daylight, Vision, and View” and talk about how great architecture celebrates views, which support social focus, reinforce cultural context and even express deeper philosophies.

“What we know (is that) life needs daylight, and life also needs healthy darkness,” she said, talking about how we need the blue light of morning and day to activate serotonin and other hormones and the red light of the fading day to produce melatonin. “Daylight lamps or TV messes with your sleep. You should turn everything off at night (and have) no exposure to blue light at night. Blue light even affects plants, birds and animals.”

That’s why Clanton also works with communities on outdoor lighting ordinances to reduce or avoid blue lights. Studies have shown that blue lights at night reduce soybean growth on farms, and they interfere with baby turtles making their way into the ocean. And, we now have less than 5% of the moth population, which act as pollinators, when compared to that of the 1950s because they get trapped in light.

She’s currently working as an adjunct researcher at the University of Alaska and has worked with the International Dark Sky Association, the greening of the White House and the Empire State Building, in addition to advocating the equity of access to light for everyone.

Her goal: That every worker and student have access to a quality view, in order to benefit physically, mentally and emotionally.