A blind wall or a rolling valley – although views vary enormously, they hardly play a role in architecture. The view-validating tool that Dr. Hester Hellinga has developed may become an eye-opener for architects.
When Hellinga was asked in 2006 for a PhD research project on the influence of daylight on the perception of workplace quality, she suggested studying the view from the windows as well. She thought views were an underexposed subject in architecture.
Initially, Hellinga questioned office workers in eight different buildings (mostly in Delft and Rotterdam) on the quality of their workplace concerning the office, the lighting and the view. She found out that if someone is satisfied with the view, there is a bigger chance that someone is also satisfied with the amount of daylight.
She then developed a daylight and view (D&V) analysis method based on scientific literature and the results of the questionnaire study The method includes a rating system for view quality. It grants points for several aspects of the view. If you’re looking at nature, it’s plus four points, if your view is human-built there’s no points to start with. This basis is refined by points for the amount of visual layers (depth of view), presence of water, natural green,the amount of diversity etcetera
In the examples shown in her thesis, the D&V ratings vary from 2 points for a outlook on a grey concrete plate to 11 for the scenery with a green slope leading to a river along the woods. The subjective ratings (given by respondents) were a little less extreme (ranging from 2,0 to 8,3 respectively) but followed the same trend.
In E.M. Forster’s novel Room with a View a Mr. Emerson famously declares: ‘Men don’t need views’. As apposed to ladies, he means. ‘Our views are here, inside our heads,’ he then clarifies.
Hellinga supposes men and women may appreciate views differently, but she studied the average appreciation instead of the differences in various sexes, ages or cultural background. And that appreciation tallied really well with the D&V rating system.
In another set-up Hellinga studied how the appreciation of the view varied with different windows (sizes, height, aspect ratio’s). She measured this by having respondents look outside through a miniaturised (1:5) office room. By varying the façade of the scale model , she could study the influence of different windows and views on the visual quality of the office room
This second study made clear that people wanted a window at least a quarter the size of the wall, but not a fully glass wall. The shape of the window was of secondary importance, but panorama was favoured above portrait. The sky component (what part of the view is sky) was a pretty good indicator for the amount of incident daylight.
A spoilt view is hard to improve, Hellinga admits. But she hopes her study will contribute in putting the view on the architect’s agenda. A proper placement of a building on the lot, respecting lines of sight and making the best of adjacent green can – for the same price – improve people’s appreciation of their views and thus of the spaces they inhabit.
Now that architects are able to rate views, they can also optimise them.
–> Hester Hellinga, Daylight and View, The Influence of Windows on the Visual Quality of Indoor Spaces, November 13, 2013, PhD supervisors Prof. Hans Cauberg and Dr. Truus Hordijk (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment)
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