Sunlight Matters LIVE from Alicante: Light, Life & the Power of Solar Exposure

In this special in-person episode of Sunlight Matters, recorded on a sun-drenched rooftop terrace in Alicante, Dave and Georg are joined by daylight expert Paul Rogers to explore the profound relationship between sunlight, architecture, and human wellbeing.

From the emotional impact of dark living spaces to the life-changing benefits of solar exposure, the conversation blends personal stories with expert insight. The trio reflects on how sunlight shapes our mood, energy, and health—often subconsciously—and why access to natural light should be a fundamental priority in housing design.

They also dive into the science and strategy behind sunlight analysis, shadow mapping, and solar exposure, highlighting how tools and awareness can transform the way we design homes, cities, and living environments. The discussion reveals a powerful truth: whether it's a terrace in Spain or a skylight at home, access to sunlight is not a luxury—it’s essential.

🔑 Key Topics Covered

• ☀️ Why humans instinctively seek sunlight
  From winter escapes to beach culture, we explore the biological and psychological drivers behind our attraction to the sun.
• 🧠 Sunlight and mental health
  Personal stories of living in dark basements and poorly lit homes reveal the deep connection between light deprivation and well-being.
• 🏡 The importance of daylight in architecture
  How window placement, skylights, and room proportions influence mood, productivity, and comfort.
• 🌇 Sunlight vs. shade: designing for different climates
  Why northern regions crave sunlight, while southern climates require intelligent shading strategies.
• 🧰 Shadow mapping & sunlight analysis
  How digital tools are revolutionizing real estate decisions, urban planning, and building design.
• 🌍 Light inequality and housing challenges
  A discussion on access to daylight as a social issue—and why better standards are needed.
• 🌞 The terrace effect
  Why even a small outdoor space with good solar exposure can dramatically improve quality of life.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Access to natural light is a core human need, not a luxury.
• Poor daylight design can negatively impact mental health and wellbeing.
• Sunlight analysis and shadow mapping are powerful tools for better homes and cities.
• Outdoor spaces with good solar exposure—like terraces—can transform daily life.
• Awareness is the first step: once people understand light, they begin to demand better environments.

🎧 Closing Thought

We don’t just enjoy sunlight—we depend on it. And whether through thoughtful design, better tools, or simply paying attention, reconnecting with the sun may be one of the most powerful ways to improve how we live.

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe. 

Transcript

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Dave Wallace:  [00:00:00] In this special edition of Sunlight Matters, Dave and Geor are joined by Paul Rogers to discuss light and life. This podcast episode is brought to you from a rooftop terrace in Alicante.

Speaker 2: Welcome to Sunlight Matters, the podcast that reconnects us with the sun. Join us as we explore the power and influence of our star, the force at the heart of everything. Each episode we speak with leading experts to uncover the ways sunlight shapes our world. 

Dave Wallace:  Here we are on the first Sunlight Matters In Person podcast 

Paul Rogers:  on location, 

Dave Wallace:  on location in Alante, which is the City of Light, I believe.

Paul Rogers:  Believe that's what the Romans called it. Yes. 

Dave Wallace:  Yes. So we're here as guests of Paul. So F Paul, thank you so much for having Gerald and I, 

Paul Rogers:  I'm really glad, really glad that you guys can come down. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah, really, thanks for having us. 

Dave Wallace:  [00:01:00] But look, this is an amazing place. We're sat on a roof terrace, uh, enjoying the sun, and I think that's why we're here is because of the sun.

Paul Rogers:  Well, I can tell you that, uh, this at this time, the sun is definitely out in, in Stockholm, but it 

Dave Wallace:  not quite this warm, so it's no, I mean, and I left behind a very murky UK yesterday just, 

Paul Rogers:  well, it is the UK ever. Anything but no, just, sorry. 

Dave Wallace:  No, no, very true. But listen, I, I was kind of keen to kind of understand what, what, uh, from your point of view, why you chose this lovely flat, um, and talk about this space here.

Paul Rogers:  I'd be glad to, I guess. Uh, we had been to Allegan a couple times with, uh, the kids when they were very young, three and five years old, and we just found a very easy city to get around. It's a nice size. I guess it's around 300,000. There's something nice that [00:02:00] happens, I guess with cities that size. There's sort of often enough to do during the day and at night, and, but they're not so big that they're a challenge.

Uh, so it just seemed like really nice. So we went, you know, we got shut in with COVID there and, uh, originally, uh, my wife, she was looking at, um, uh, summer cottages in, in Sweden. 'cause you know, they thought, well, maybe we want a place to get away from our, our first house on, on occasion. And I really wasn't interested.

I just, but then she started to pull up, uh, uh, these ads from, from Spain. I felt like my, my eyes were glued to the screen and I didn't realize, my wife's very good at pointing out things that I want and directions way before I knew them. Uh, and then I realized that this is actually a dream I've had for maybe 20 years.

Turning 50. I wasn't getting older. I didn't want a sports car. Uh, so I figured, well, the [00:03:00] money could go to just sit in the bank or we're lucky enough to have a little bit of extra. And I thought, well, why not? I'm not getting any younger and this is something that, that I want. And we had this grind of the Scandinavian winters.

I don't, I guess you have it in the uk, but I think there, there's a different magnitude of darkness in Scandinavia. And I, I found the trips that we had here really had filled up the battery. And at that time, I, I, I felt like I didn't really want to travel too far from home with the uncertainty that COVID rang.

And it just made sense that I really would like a place that we could call and, and. To travel is, is often there's inconvenience, but to have a place like this, you know, with an underwear drawer and your socks, and to just, to be able to show up and en enjoy the place. Um, so we, we went ahead and we did, the conditions were very favorable with [00:04:00] regards to interest rates and, um, the Swedish kroner had a good exchange rate.

And a friend of mine had said, you know, if you've ever find a place that you live do really like and are interested in buying it, don't hesitate. 'cause chances are other people will see if you have an opportunity, take it. Uh, because he had done that in, in the Rocky Mountains in Canada. And, and 10 years later, you know, he, he owned a company and had a lot of money, but he said, you know, quite frankly, I can't afford it now.

And so we acted and, and that it wasn't very long, you know, interest rates went up and Swedish kroner went down. Suddenly, uh, all you Brits came in and started driving up the prices in this area. And sure enough, it just took a couple years and, and maybe it's sort of outside our, our price point now, but it was funny because we originally had our, um, site set on another place a couple blocks away.

It was lowered down, just had a balcony. We didn't get it. My wife was quite [00:05:00] upset. 

Georg Molzer:  So that was your first try? 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Yeah. And we put a bid on it and everything and, and, and we didn't get it. Uh, and then she looped back around to this one and I said, the windows are small, it's gonna be too dark. She's like, no, no, no.

I, I believe in this. And like most things I've learned, if I listen to my wife, then good things will happen. And, uh, I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't have, it's a life lesson we have. She's, she's a, a very smart woman and she had, as her focus to terrorists, she said, well, maybe it doesn't matter. She said, first of all, I don't think it's that dark telling the daylight expert, she didn't think it was that dark.

Uh, it turns out she's right. And then, uh, also she replaced the value on the terrace. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. Or she saw the terrace before you, I 

Paul Rogers:  knew the terrace would be an advantage. I guess I didn't realize how much of an [00:06:00] advantage it would be. And quite frankly, the place is sort of falling apart a bit. That's why we could, could afford the roof leaks and, and a few other things.

We, we'd, uh, there's no insulation in it or, or whatever. But we love it and we never, we would, 

Georg Molzer:  I mean, if you get off the roof completely, you have even more sun. Right? 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It just, it's such a good match for us. Well, the fact that it's, it's an older place from 1910 and we can give it a little care feeding and 

Georg Molzer:  club 1910, 

Paul Rogers:  I think.

Something like that. 

Georg Molzer:  Wow. Uh, 

Paul Rogers:  we can give it a little bit of care feeding though. The facade belongs not to us, but it belongs to the, um, uh, the, what they call the community, which is I guess the condo board. Uh, and the roofs, uh, it's a little bit worn by Swedish standards, but by Spanish standards. It's f sods in quite good shape.

And so we, we have to re reassess a little bit our level of what, what good maintenance is. [00:07:00] Uh, but we, we really feel it's, uh, it's been such a good choice for us to find and be able to tank up. I find the Scandinavian winters, they don't wear me down quite at all because every so often we can go and, 

Dave Wallace:  I mean, I mean it's incredible.

'cause here we are, it's early March and yeah. The sun's almost. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And you're, you're sitting sort of just starting to get the solar altitude in I think in about an hour you're gonna be in about half. It's a good thing. Hopefully we'll be done in an hour. 'cause I think you're gonna be pretty hot. Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  I can feel, I'm already, so it feels like a English kind of early summer's day already.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is more like Swedish summer. This is, this is the height of the, 

Dave Wallace:  the swish Summer. But it, but it's, but I, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm, my wife is very similar. She can see things I can't see. Yeah. So, you know, it's good. Your wife 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Persuaded. 'cause this is incredible. Like, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  And what, what I hadn't understood about a cante was the.

Just the number of [00:08:00] terraces. So we've been up Yeah. And we've had to look down on the city. Yeah. And it's, 

Paul Rogers:  well, a small scale, uh, and there's a neighborhood barrio, it's called barrio, which just, just means neighborhood, but that's what they refer to it as here. And just a small scale, two, three stories with a sort of tapestry of different terraces of different heights.

And it makes for a really interesting problem with solar exposure, a challenge to get that proper resolution because within two meters there's a lot of variation with scale and height. 

Dave Wallace:  Well, well insert some video into this because I think, you know, what you can then see is exactly that, what you're talking about.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And it can be easy to miss in these analyses, um, is that a couple of square meters of sun is enough, like to have a conversation or that, um, the vertical extents of a wall. Lit next to, uh, uh, maybe the floor's not as well lit. That's enough to get, to start warming and have a reflective space. But it, we shouldn't miss the fact, you know, we we're giving a very [00:09:00] Nordic or, or northern European context here in, uh, during the summer.

It works the other way. Yeah. And that was one of the things that I really enjoyed, um, learning this climate because, um, I never really experienced the, this climate or warm climate throughout the year. So it's one of these things, you know, in your brain, but then that's another thing you actually could feel in your body.

So, uh, it didn't take me very long in the summer to find the shadow. So something like shadow map I would use to find what's in the shadow. So there's actually a turning point. Maybe in the day somewhere, somewhere in the season, around April, you start to shift. From mapping the sun, the patches of sun to matching the patches of, of shade, 

Dave Wallace:  shade 

Paul Rogers: fascinating.

Yeah. And it happens actually fairly, fairly quickly. 

Dave Wallace:  I mean, it's in because you, you, your perspective is, is really interested because your, because you live in [00:10:00] Scandinavia now, it's just so 

Paul Rogers:  dark. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. But you're very sensitive to that. Mm-hmm. And, and you know, some of the conversations I've had and gal and I have had, have been with people who live in, um, like places like California or Greece or where, you know, they, they, they talk about actually you don't need the sun analysis.

Yeah. But what you probably need is that shade analysis. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. I have a really good coworker and she's from Greece and, um, she doesn't like the sun. And it's fascinating to hear that perspective. You know, she doesn't, she'll go home because we closed the office for three weeks, which is a very Scandinavian thing to do.

I love that. And uh, uh, she often goes home, but she'd rather not go then because it's just too darn hot and she's gonna have to be indoors all day. Yeah. And this is something that the southern Europeans that work on my team is a perspective that I had never really thought about because of course in, in Scandinavia, Canada, that's when you have to make use of the weather and all the [00:11:00] saying that the Swedish summer, it's the nicest day of the year.

You know, you gotta really maximize that, that little time that, that you have. So that's been a, but now that I've had this context, I can see a little bit more about that perspective. 'cause we actually didn't buy it for the summer, although my wife, she does like the heat. Um, it's really, uh, I'm. I can take it or leave it by the time we've had a couple weeks in the summer, I think I'm ready to go back to Scandinavia to have a, a little, 

Georg Molzer:  like two to three weeks and then, then it's enough.

Paul Rogers:  That is enough for me. Yeah. I'm kind of glad to get on that airplane. I'm sort of worn down, 

Georg Molzer:  but it's always different when, when you imagine that you leave at some place. Yeah. Like you, you can't escape basically stuck there. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And 

Georg Molzer:  gives you, 

Paul Rogers:  again, it's what I, what you think it's gonna be like and then what you experience.

And I was, for so long, I was living with sort of a deficit of, of sun. So to have this [00:12:00] other side that you see, it's maximized really. It goes back and, and you learn to appreciate the darkness or not so much the darkness, but the more gentle climate of Scandinavia. Um, it's a little bit when, if I'm in Canada during the summer, I'm really glad 'cause it gets dark at night, which it doesn't get in Scandinavia.

So you learn to appreciate subtle things with the other climate. 'cause you've had this balance, but to sort of face the sun and see the challenges, the, the way that my Greek colleague sees it is sort of raised an understanding. And again, it has to do with the memory of your body as opposed to, you know, you can read it or you can think it, but when you actually feel it for a while, then you understand it.

Georg Molzer:  Which reminds me of this conversation we had the other day about both of us realizing that we spent significant time in living in basements. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. As a, as a, which is wild. Yeah. As a 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. And that was really like for, for me, the realization because [00:13:00] before that, you know, like I didn't really care so much about sunlight, but then when I, I had the diet, you could say 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah.

Georg Molzer:  For two and a half years, I mean, 

yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  I wasn't 24 7 in his basement, but I was, it was my, my room like in a flat chair. Yeah. And man, like this, um, lack of, of light for such a long time. And I had dreams, you know, like I was, I was screaming that this little war behind my desk. 

Paul Rogers:  Beautiful horse 

Georg Molzer:  running around.

Paul Rogers:  So that's your body telling you

and the lack of view, even the lack of view. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah, totally. Totally. But it really like, it, it, it made me realize how much I love the sun. 'cause I, I got, um, disconnected. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. We, we had moved out of my parents' home, so I would, I was, I guess around 23 and I was still an architecture school, living at home. And then I went to Helsinki for a while to do my final studio.

And then, um, shortly after that we [00:14:00] moved into a, uh, a regular bungalow because my parents were downsizing. 'cause they could see that I was gonna move out soon. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Of course. I was broke having lived in Finland on my own for a, a number of months. Uh, so we didn't move out right away, but I started to get ready.

So I was in this basement and, and I got a, a really. For that age and, and the amount of experience I had, I, I was lucky and I got a, a good job planning out libraries and so I took that money and I bought a computer. So I sat in that basement that entire summer and I had this great, like, really fun job to go in and measure out libraries.

We were planning to move them and it was, it was a great challenge and, uh, I was very happy time, but I felt really depressed. I couldn't understand why. Of course, in retrospect, I look back and eight hours a day in that basement with just these, you know, little, little two little windows. I think the, you know, we often talk about window area ratio.

That's the, uh, um, [00:15:00] it's the ratio of the room size. Yeah. To the, to the glass, the glazed area, and generally speaking, depending on climate, you, you think it's around 10%. Many countries have this and they're building codes in around 15% or 

Georg Molzer:  so. It's the ratio between windows, the surface, 

Paul Rogers:  the glass, the glass, 

Georg Molzer:  the interior surface of the rule.

Paul Rogers:  No, no. The floor space. It's very simple. It's just your floor space. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Against, uh, the glazed area. It's the most simple of daylight metrics. So often you say 10% is the rule of thumb. Some countries lean to 15. So I would say I probably had around, uh, 1%. So I probably had about a 10th of the light down there.

Georg Molzer:  Oh, a night 

Paul Rogers:  did I that I should have had. And so it's no wonder that I felt kind of desperate for, but the thing is you still have to work eight hours a day. So that doesn't mean you can take two hours off in the afternoon. Like you would go up and you might have 15 minutes, but then back to the dungeon again.

So I was quite, I was quite happy to finally move [00:16:00] out. So when I was looking for apartments, and in those days it was the nineties, and in my home city, Winnipeg, it was, let's just say the real estate market was not on the top. So you could look at 10 apartments a day and take your pick. So the first apartment I went and I looked at, nothing really.

And then the last one I looked at, it was towards the end of the day. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. I remember the door opening. The landlord just gave me the key and I went up on my own open door and it was like this wall of light hitting me in the face. And I knew right then, I'm like, this is it now.

It was a similar size. It was a similar style to the house that I grew up in. So that helped as well. And I just knew right away it had, the room was not deep, the window was horizontal. It was unobstructed to the south. And it had this advantage of the building in front of, it was just at a height that it gave reflectance.

So it was lower than the, just lower than the window. My window. So it gave reflect [00:17:00] extra, extra reflectance to the roof. To the ceiling of my roof. 

Georg Molzer:  Oh, nice. 

Paul Rogers:  So, and I think it was, uh. About, uh, maybe 300 euro per month or something like that. It was 65 square meters with parking. I mean, this is unheard of it now.

I mean, you could never get this, but it was just so well lit and, and, uh, it, it was just such a light apartment, but it did overheat. Uh, I didn't really have any, I was so at a deficit for light. I, I just went without any solar shading at all. Like, I didn't have any blinds whatsoever. Not even in the bedroom.

'cause I just felt like I was just at such a deficit. And the whole building, it would get to, uh, first few days it was of hot weather. And when I say hot, I mean kind of a hot 30 degrees. I don't mean boly hot. Uh, it was okay because the building had some thermal inertia, but then a, after maybe the third day, the building had sucked up all the heat, so it would be around 29, 30 degrees.

And it certainly didn't help that I didn't have [00:18:00] any solar shading. And the windows were quite, you know, they had no solar protection at all. They were quite crappy windows, but the frames were thin. I appreciated that. So we got maximum glass area. 

Georg Molzer:  Did you wake up with the morning sun? 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, pretty much. Um, but I think I was still a little younger, so my sleep rhythms were maybe a little different.

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  I think as I've grown older, uh, my chronotype somewhat has changed. Uh, initially I think it was easier for me to sleep in in the morning, so now I, as soon as the sun is up, I kind of, 

Dave Wallace:  it's really, I mean, it's interesting that, because I, I mean, as you both talking, I'm suddenly thinking about my experience.

So I, um, went to university in Birmingham in the uk 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  And, um, I, I actually hated university. 

Paul Rogers:  Mm-hmm. 

Dave Wallace:  And I came out and I think was pretty depressed. 

Paul Rogers:  Mm-hmm. 

Dave Wallace:  And as you are talking, I'm remembering the house I lived in and I've often blamed the house I'm living lived in for my depression. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  [00:19:00] Um. 'cause it was very moldy, but it was also moldy.

And very dark. Very dark. Dark. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Dark. And I, it now the wine, well 

Paul Rogers:  there's a connection between natural. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. You know, and it's sort of fascinating that those, like your basement experience Gale. Mm-hmm. And your experience with living in a basement. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And you right there is that humidity and that because you don't have the, the cleansing effect.

Dave Wallace:  Well to totally, it's that whole thing. But I think it's then shaped perhaps. Your sensitivity towards sunlight. Mm-hmm. So, you know, now I'm thinking, well, actually that's probably what was going on with me. Yeah. Because the house was a horrible house. Yeah. But very dark. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Um, 

Paul Rogers:  well, some will be more sensitive at two than others, so.

Dave Wallace:  Well, I think that that's right. But I think that you may have these sort of moments in your life where 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  With subconsciously you are kind of connecting the dots in terms of this. Yeah. So I, I've always then been very interested in polite aspect of the houses. I've lived it. [00:20:00] And then, you know, look at us this morning.

The three of us stood by the side of the Mediterranean Sea watching the sunrise. You know, and I mean, having a great time, 

Paul Rogers:  but it does, it does come with a degree of privilege and there is. You know, later in life, um, let's say you've taken, uh, you've had, you've been lucky enough to be able to take a, a post-secondary degree and, and lucky enough to get a good job.

And, and then you have these lectures, but it, the, the fact remains, there's a good portion of the population. It doesn't have that. 

Dave Wallace:  No, I think that's right. 

Paul Rogers:  There is a tendency even now also with students to say, well, we will give them crap. Uh, very difficult because they just want to get outta the house.

And to some degree that's true. But the bar has dropped very low with what, at least in Sweden, what is acceptable and what kind of difficult circumstances. And I think it's a particular challenge when you look at, um, uh, mental health, uh, amongst young women of, of, [00:21:00] of that age. There are some challenges there.

And it seems like that's probably the last group you should be putting in a moldy dark and it, it doesn't matter. 

Dave Wallace:  I agree. I mean, I think this is all part of. You know, our schools are poorly lit. Like in the UK our schools are poorly lit. We don't have, you know, many schools have had to sell off land 

Paul Rogers:  mm-hmm.

Dave Wallace:  Um, for housing. Yeah. 'cause they can't afford, you know, budgets and things. So you've got kids not going outside. And then as you say, you go into the, well, you're my son's in the, you, you know, he's got beautiful university accommodation. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  But the window's like this. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  You, you know, so 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  They, they've just basically said, 

Paul Rogers:  well, you saw there, there's, there was that discussion, I can't remember at one of the Uni American universities to have this, um, windowless student residents.

Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  I, I, I've, I've read about, I mean, yeah. It's, it's 

Paul Rogers:  terrible. 

Dave Wallace:  It, it's absolutely terrible. It's absolutely, I mean, I, I would ask you this question. I mean, you talk about [00:22:00] privilege. I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. You know, imagine you could afford a glass fronted bge. Um, you know, amazing. Lux is flat on the waterfront here.

Yeah. But you didn't have the terrace. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, no, I wouldn't give that up. I'd rather the sound of the water was nice and everything and, and I think what the water offers, it offers that. I mean, the breezes are nice when it gets hot, uh, but we're still, we still can get a few breezes from here and you get the reflection of the sky off the water and you can read the weather.

Everything's, everything's mirrored. But for me to be able to move around and have actually what is essentially a large outdoor room to, to be able to be outside, and again, we didn't necessarily buy this place again. We didn't necessarily buy this place for the summer. Um, I bought it for now when I'm really needing the, and, and the winter [00:23:00] and, and, and the OTT and the kids are off these different sort of intervals over.

I think that. In the summer, we can't really be out here at certain times, but in the mornings it's amazing when it's first starting to warm up and the sun is first starting to warm up, and then maybe you can get a little bit of time before it starts to heat up. And in the afternoon it's, it's, it's unusable.

But other than that, like for the rest of the year, you know, as soon as the sun comes out, here we are, and it just feels so good. It's such a, this little three by three meter, maybe even two by two space is, is so important to me. And, and, and it gives me really a sense of wellbeing. This is, uh, I think you, Dave, you're sitting in one of my favorite spots ever in the world.

The access. I can 

Dave Wallace:  understand 

Paul Rogers:  why the access to the sun is really what drives that. And you were here yesterday and it was, uh, mixing is sort of teasing us. It was mixing between cloud, sun, cloud, sun. Yeah. And those moments, [00:24:00] the sun, it was kind of nice in, in some ways, but those moments when the sun came out where we're like, yeah.

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 'cause you feel it. Like the, uh, I said it when I arrived, like the Spanish sun. It has more power. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Than the Austrian sun. Like you, if there's a cloud, it's cold immediately. But if the cloud is gone and it, like, you feel it radiating, 

Paul Rogers:  it's the ir just sort of blasting, blasting, blasting your yourselves in a, 

Georg Molzer:  I think it's, it's kind of fascinating what we talked before, like, like being in this basement, like kinda sun deprived.

And it, it reminded me of like going on a diet, you know, like when, when you eat a lot and then you just stop eating, which I actually haven't done. But you, you go on a diet. 

Paul Rogers:  Mm-hmm. 

Georg Molzer:  So you, you regain this. This appreciation of it. And it also reminded me of there some retreats where you, you go into a dark room and it's completely, there's no light at all, and you stay there for 10 days or longer, and they give you the food through like a double [00:25:00] doors that you never have any sunlight.

Paul Rogers:  And this is something you pay for. Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. And the crazy thing is like after some days you even, because there is never any light, you, you see hallucinations and stuff. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Um, and you also, like, you are confronted with some stuff inside you. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  But then like what they say, like after this 10 days, 20 days, whatever, they, they blindfold you and then they bring you outside.

So they bring you to some like beautiful mountain and then they, they let you watch the sunrise. Yeah. So they, they lift on and the people, they have like amazing areas. Oh my God. Like,

yeah. I mean, I was, I was not locked into this base. Yeah. I mean, it makes so much sense, you know, like also like something that is so crucial for our wellbeing and life and everything to detach from it for, for a while to re-appreciate it. 

Paul Rogers:  What sort of, what sort of space have you had [00:26:00] that you have really appreciated?

Like, is there something that you've have felt where you've lived, where you said this, this, I really, this is optimal. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Have you had something like that? 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. I mean, in my, my childhood my, yeah, my, the house of my parents 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Which is like, like 40 kilometers from Vienna. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And, and in the, in the springtime, the, the sun was rising directly through the veranda, I dunno if Yeah.

That's the second word. Yeah. Veranda. Mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  In English 

Georg Molzer:  into the living room. And you had like this golden light on the, the walls. And my, my mom had some, some crystal standing there. So they got the cost, like the, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Both things. And that was just. You know, like when, when the springtime arrived and I was, have vivid memories when I got to kindergarten and it was like the time where we were allowed to ride our bikes Mm.

Into the kindergarten and the smell and the air and it's just like, this really hits me. I had this actually like a week ago in Vienna. We had [00:27:00] already some nice warm weather, which was really surprisingly, and I also was riding my bike and, and like some of these core memories as a Yeah, as a child, they come back and you really feel them like 80, 90% you're there.

Paul Rogers:  It's 

Georg Molzer:  awesome. 

Paul Rogers:  I think you've got this exactly. The core memories as a child, and again, we get back to, am I gonna be in a position where I can offer my children a, an environment which is not only safe, but also has that aspect to to, to light. For me that that was a very, so I'd rather take a smaller house with a couple of skylights.

Like I've got a couple of skylights and I just, for me, I, it sounds stupid, but I almost measure my success. I look at those damn skylights and I'm like, yeah, I really, I really got what I wanted. I mean, when you top light of space, you know, it's a completely different dynamic and you can even bring greenery into the center of the house.

Georg Molzer:  [00:28:00] Okay, so you have like direct holes into the sky? Yeah. Or is it 

Paul Rogers:  like 

Georg Molzer:  higher 

Paul Rogers:  and, and it allows, like to be able to have a big cluster of green in the middle, which was normally sort of the darker part of the room. 

Georg Molzer:  That's cool. 

Paul Rogers:  There's many aspects in, in, in a house like this. I often in my lectures talk about this house and it's, it's one of the reasons we bought it.

It's from the fifties. It has a, uh, a really, it's well thought out, daylight planning, so. In the mornings, the sun comes up in the north of the back of the house. It gives sort of a warm glow through the kids' rooms, uh, and through our room sort of wakes us up, uh, in the middle of summer. Well, maybe it's maybe not as appreciated as in the middle of winter.

And then you have this, uh, low angle sun, which often would normally come in and cause glare. Mm-hmm. Uh, and it's strong enough at that time that maybe you don't want it hitting you right in the face at a low angle. But at that [00:29:00] point, the, um, and I've used shadow map, I should to describe this, um, uh, when it hits the gable of the house, like, 'cause it's a row house where we don't have, that's actually the time that, so we don't get that low angle in your face.

Like when sun enters a room, uh, and hits a wall, that's a very good thing. But if it. Hits a face, hits your face, or goes deep into the room. That's another thing. So you want sun to sort of glance in at an angle and hit something and diffuse rather than getting the direct beam. So what happens in around maybe 10 o'clock in the summer or in the winter, maybe around 10 o'clock when the sun's coming up, then it's starting to come round to the south.

And there we're fully open, but by then the sun's in the winter's weak and we don't feel like we have to have protection from it. Or in the summer it's high enough that we can put down a, an awning 

Dave Wallace:  mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  And get a really good diffuse light. And we also have the skylight [00:30:00] to couse. So it's a very nice light there.

Um, it's interesting as a patch of the skylight, it moves far more than you think over the course of the day. So it starts up one wall and then it kind of, it go even connects into different rooms, which is quite cool. And especially around midsummer, it starts to create all sorts of tricks and refractions and, and it's particularly strong.

So we'll bounce off. We have a, a picture which is glass, and then it, sometimes the patch will hit that and then it bounces. So over the course of the day, uh, it's gonna move and then we're getting back around three o'clock, four o'clock. Then it's that really nasty low angle. It's often hot, but then it's on the other gable, so it disappears again.

But Skylight still giving us good light in that room. But there's something neat about that late afternoon sun when it starts to cut in at that nice angle. It's not going deep in the room, but it's just sort of cutting in. It will connect down our [00:31:00] staircase into where our living room is, and that room has to, the north, it has these huge strip windows, almost the hole width through.

It's much deeper. Sorry. It's much wider room than it is deep. That is a good thing to start with. But then, because you get light from the black back of the room through the Sta staircase, you get this injection of diffuse very warm sunlight. So you've got cool blue light flooding in nicely from the wonderf from the north, and then you get this injection of, of sunlight, which is diffuse and warm.

It's the most amazing 'cause in some parts of that room, it's lighter towards the back of what you would traditionally call the back of the room than, and that's, that's over, maybe that's about an hour and a half. You get this very unique condition. I've tried to photograph, it's impossible. A camera can't really make sense.

Georg Molzer:  Uh, but I mean, when, when you say like, you try to photograph it, like it really seems that you are very passionate about this. And, and then when you think about like more regular people, they might not even be aware. 

Paul Rogers:  I think they, I think [00:32:00] you'd be aware you would be struck by this. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  But it, but it's interesting 'cause I, I think.

I think they would be aware, but they wouldn't know how to articulate. Yeah. That awareness, I think that's the problem. Well, 

Paul Rogers:  I think quite often with rooms, it, a room can have big windows and still be gloomy because the back of the room is dark. So if you have a six meter deep room that's not very wide across the facade, you're, you are gonna have a lot of contrast and it's difficult for your eye to adjust.

Georg Molzer:  Mm. 

Paul Rogers:  But the room I'm describing, like, it's a very, it's almost like a white diffused blanket over, over the room. But later on, what happens is then when it's starting to get low and nasty again, we lose it on that other gable. And it's so nice during the summer, maybe around seven o'clock, sun's starting to lose a little power.

Eight o'clock at night just comes back around the north again. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  And sort of says goodnight to us. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Uh, around the time we're, we're, we're going to bed. So it's, you really get the sense that the sun is taking you through the day. Right. You can, [00:33:00] you can always mark the passage of time. What point of the day.

Yeah, it is by the, by the position of the sun. And again, trying to explain this, I did it usually through photographs, but lately I've been using Shadow Map and it really, it explains that relationship so much better. Right. I can't expect people to listen to every word I've said and follow the train of thought that then when you can show them chat, have as much, 

Georg Molzer:  you know, like what, what I think is that when, when I, I don't know, I was on vacation, there was like a nice home and I just felt very happy and alive and energized.

Yeah. And I didn't even think about the sunlight, you know, I was not aware enough or like 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Focused on the topic enough. So what I could imagine, many people, they are maybe not so energized and not so happy because they're lacking it and some have it and they don't even realize it's the sun, which is actually the, the driving factor.

Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  I think it's very common to move into an apartment and not realize maybe what the conditions are there. Yeah. And then after a year and a half. [00:34:00] I do think dark apartments, nobody's gonna study this, but I would expect that dark apartments usually there. There's many things that go into having a house, right?

And maybe you've got a daycare that you particularly like or a school. But I do think the turnover in dark, uh, in, in the Nordic, uh, and in, uh, Northern Europe context, the turnover in dark and even to some degree, I think even when you get into these tight urban context in Southern Europe, dark apartments probably turnover more like, like we shouldn't, we shouldn't miss the fact that there are many people in Greece or Spain or Portugal that in fact are on the lower floors in a very, does it actually feel a lack of light as well?

And there is, for example, in Greece, there is planning guidelines that, from what I understand, that uh, that address that now whether or not they're followed is a different situation. But there is still, just because you live in a, a more southern country and and you do are out more often. Shouldn't necessarily mean that you have to live dark.

But definitely one thing I know is [00:35:00] in a Scandinavian context, you shouldn't have to to live dark. But there's, there's cost of construction, there's land costs, and there's really, uh, uh, a unique challenge to house everybody, but to do it in a manner that you are not compromising some of these Yeah. These basic things.

Georg Molzer:  I think as if within so many things, it always starts with awareness. I would say. You know, like 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  If you make it easily approachable Yeah. To understand, then you can optimize towards it. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Right. 

Dave Wallace:  I mean, again, I'm interested 'cause it's like you think of Alec. Mm-hmm. We were talking about this. I came in from Gatwick yesterday.

Yeah, absolutely. Ramed. So you've got large numbers of Brits who are doing the same as you. Yeah. Escaping. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  The winter coming here. The 

Paul Rogers:  Northern Europeans. Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. And Northern Europeans coming here. Nobody's told them that that's a thing to do, it's just they 

Paul Rogers:  no, 

Dave Wallace:  they know subconsciously that that's a good thing to do.

Yeah. For [00:36:00] them. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And I think particularly acute regarding what their condition at home is, 

Dave Wallace:  and that, that would be really interesting is to go back and ask them what, what, you know, how, what's your house like? 

Paul Rogers:  But the irony is, but the irony is that many of those people living in with less access to light will also be the ones that can't afford to go to all 

Dave Wallace:  IIII, I totally agree.

And I think, so there's a, there's multi-layers to this. One is obviously, you know, light needs to be, um, considered an absolute priority, I think for, for people. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Um, you know, be that through social housing and 

Paul Rogers:  mm-hmm. 

Dave Wallace:  Uh, or whatever it is, it needs to be a priority at the moment. It's nowhere to be seen.

Yeah. Much of the legislation that's out. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Because the uk and I think we've talked about this before, it ha it has no mandatory, mandatory requirement. It has [00:37:00] recommendations and I know there's been some work to bring that up to parliament. Uh, but, 

Dave Wallace:  but I, I think that, I think that's right. But it also like, to Gail's point, this is about awareness as well.

Paul Rogers:  Oh yeah. A consumer ultimately can drive 

Dave Wallace:  a, you know, the consumer needs to discussion. So when, like, I think, you know, one of our jobs is to say, well, the fact that you get on a plane and come to all Kente is because your body needs sunlight. You don't know that that's the reason, but your subconscious, your mit, whatever it is, your mitochondria are telling you this.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And particularly the, the, but what is interesting is this. Attraction to the beach. Why? Why? 

Dave Wallace:  Totally. You know, and we talked a bit about that this morning. Yeah. Is why do people end up on the beach as well? But there's something so subconscious there. But equally, going back to your description of your house, like I think that's so eloquent and beautiful, but most people aren't able to kind of intellectualize lighting in their [00:38:00] house in the same way.

But if they were, they would probably demand different solutions to the ones that they have. And I think it's sort of like, yeah. How do we get people to 

Paul Rogers:  Well it's, it's 

Dave Wallace:  give them the words to speak. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. It's difficult to assess unless you have a tool to assess it. 

Dave Wallace:  Well, and I think this is, you know why actually Shadow Map for me is such a powerful tool because I told you my story of my house is Yeah.

Paul Rogers:  I, 

Dave Wallace:  I've, I fell in love with it, bought it, fell out of love with it. Yeah. 'cause I didn't think it was great from a light point of view because I just was being like, you know. I dunno. Just wasn't really thinking it through. Yeah. And then discovered that actually it's a brilliant house. Yeah. From a light point of view, it's just, you know, you've got to optimize the moments.

Like it gets fantastic morning light. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  So that, which is the, the, for me, the most important thing. Is 

Paul Rogers:  it a two story house or? 

Dave Wallace:  It's a two story house. 

Paul Rogers:  Okay. So you couldn't necessarily inserting skylights would only be on the bedroom [00:39:00] level there? 

Dave Wallace:  Well, potentially we could, you know, and we, we are actually move thinking of going up into the loft and yeah, we would move our bedroom into the loft with skylights there as well.

Um, but it's got, it's actually got great live and it was just like, I, I needed to be told almost that, that it, it wasn't as bad as I, and I know it sounds really weird, but it's sort of by interesting mapping it out through shadow map, I kind of, yeah. Went up. I'm just being stupid and know 

Paul Rogers:  where it, where the light is at the particular, if, I think you would find, if you, if you were to maybe cut an extra window, so you have, if you have possibility light for two directions, that's very good.

But also, uh, uh, a skylight is very transformative Yeah. To your room. Uh, I think you're really never have good daylight unless you have a skylight 

Georg Molzer:  fit them easily. 

Paul Rogers:  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I think that's been a major, um, uh, discussion [00:40:00] point is, uh, it's very big in Denmark to renovate attic spaces in, in, because there, you, rather than build something dense in a courtyard, to fill in a courtyard with a new building, I'd rather, uh, that attic space is excellent.

There's a lot of light falling on that roof, so you can make very bright spaces. Mm-hmm. And, and so attic renovation is one way that we can find more places to live. Uh, and that are well lit. 

Georg Molzer:  Mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  And, and, and give a good opportunity there. But I would, I definitely look into it. 'cause like I said, for me it's, it's always been a, a, a dream to have.

I had, the first one I had was in a, a hotel or one of these, uh, resorts in, in Spain. And they all, they, they had in the bathroom just a single glass and a, like, it's basically a hole's, a single glass in it. And the light that came through that was unbelievable. Like, now it makes a big [00:41:00] difference, the aperture, like how deep it is, how wide it is, whether it's displayed or there's a lot of stuff that, that can happen there.

And that's, I think then I realized like, I, I want one of those. I really hope I can have the, it's something that, that if most people don't have that opportunity, but if, if it's certainly for the try, 

Georg Molzer:  it's, it's nice that you. That you would measure wealth in the amount of skylights you have? I 

Paul Rogers:  or the quality of daylight that I have.

Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  The first time I'm hearing this. Yeah. And I think it's a, it's a nice way of, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah. Like I said, you could offer me a Lamborghini, but I take three skylights over that. 

Georg Molzer:  Alright. 

Paul Rogers:  I've been thinking about it, doing it here. Um, because you think about the main room here, it would just be amazing with a skylight.

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  But we've already had problems with the roof leaking and we don't own the roof, so I'm not really ready 

Georg Molzer:  said Just get rid of the roof, 

Paul Rogers:  man. Yeah. Well my wife is, uh, uh, my wife was saying that, well, we may just have to end [00:42:00] up repairing the roof with our own money and in that way we could just put in the damn skyline.

Yeah. And, and give it because it, it would become a next level space in there. Like now it's nice you've got light really from three directions, which is pretty nice. But then that would really open it to the sky. 

Georg Molzer:  How would you make it like in, in the middle of summer when it's like super hot, we have to like.

Paul Rogers:  Well, it does have the advantage for Sky. Yeah. Yeah. It does have the advantage facing a little bit north, so. Mm-hmm. Um, the, you get a, uh, a built in, uh, motorized shade probably. Yeah. And that shade has, um, uh, depending on how much you you're willing to spend, but I would definitely invest in, in one that is metalized.

It's a high performance shade. And I would get a, a skylight that also has a, a solar protection coating. So it wouldn't be the most clear skylight, but it doesn't need to be, 'cause it's open up, it's open to the sky. So I think a, a light transmittance of say 50% on [00:43:00] a, something like that. Enough. Like you wouldn't have a light transmission of 70%.

That would be quite high. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  But between a glass, it's a little tinted. And this metal ice shade, which costs a little more, which has a thin coating of aluminum on it. Uh, I think you'd be fairly well protected if it were facing south. I wouldn't be too sure. And it depends on the size of the skylight.

Yeah. I see that a lot with architects where they want to put in skylights and then they'll have double the area that they should. So it's important that people don't overdo it as well. You know, you've got a valve, a balance there with, with heating loads and a, and a solar shading strategy that matches your ambition.

Dave Wallace:  I mean, it's interesting. So these sort of solar coating as well. I mean we, we just did a, uh, podcast with, uh, a glazing specialist and we were talking about like UV and infrared coming through. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. The infrared gets taken out with solar coating. 

Dave Wallace:  But in this instance, that's not a problem. 'cause you've got this, I mean, I'm guessing the [00:44:00] deck, you could be out pretty much here.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, even, even when it's cloudy or, or there's not direct sun, we're still getting in. The fact is when we're here, uh, now some of it has to do with the kids aren't in school. That, that we have, uh, uh, uh, when they are on break, we don't have the demands. We, uh, the same demands that we do when we're at home and the kids are in school and we're working, we still, I have to work, but we find the time to get out and walk because, you know, it's not, I, I, I try to walk a, a, a lot in a day, but in the, sometimes in the winter, you know, I'm at about four kilometers or three and a half kilometers and I really want to go outside, but it's rainy and it's, uh, you know, very dark.

It's been dark for three hours and you really gotta push yourself to get out. But. Here, I find I can go for a walk at 10 o'clock in January. Just so we we're out a lot more, not just here, but also walking around. We try to [00:45:00] get up early, get our, our work out of the way, and then get out in the peak of the day and move around the city and, and, and try to find the sunny spots during the winter.

Dave Wallace:  I mean, it's interesting, again, you think about people trying to maximize, you know, who's such sort of listen to various podcasts. They're like, okay, I believe in light as a, from a health point of view. Um, you know, I think coming to a place like all is not a bad idea in, in winter, you know, it's sort of fairly easy to get to.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  But the quality of light is unbelievable. 

Paul Rogers:  Well, yeah. I mean, even already it's very. I find it to be a very white light compared to the sort of, 

Dave Wallace:  yeah, 

Paul Rogers:  even during, especially during summer, you know, it's a deep blue sky and it, the light becomes almost, there's even, even the reflected light is of a, of a magnitude, which is formidable.[00:46:00] 

So you can be out of the sun, but still be getting quite a bit of radiation or so much, um, uh, around, 

Georg Molzer:  yeah, 

Paul Rogers:  uh, reflection and scattered and it's, it's a whole, whole different, different, 

Georg Molzer:  nevertheless, I think, um. Like you, you envisioned me in a Portuguese fisher. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Town. I mean, if you can do it, you gotta, you put your Lamborghini away, you know, you Yeah.

No Ferrari, no Lamborghini. I see you living in a 

Georg Molzer:  fishing. And I would, I would really like to have like a, a skylight. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And I'm just, I'm just saying it, you know, like Yeah. 'cause I think it's technically possible somehow. And you have like on the wall, like a little panel with two sliders and one slider for the infrared, um, throughput and transmittance and the other one for the ED transmittance.

And you can just choose what you want like in winter, you know, like when, when it's cold outside and you wanna still like get some 

Paul Rogers:  tune at Tuneable glaze. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah, exactly. Shoot a, you just open up fully and you, you have [00:47:00] nice radiation in summer. You just lock it down. 

Paul Rogers:  I'm asking you if you do that, do you envision yourself being indoors that much?

Georg Molzer:  Indoor. What does, 

Paul Rogers:  are you inside, inside, inside, 

Georg Molzer:  yeah. When it's cold in winter. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Yeah. But you'll be out, you will be out. Yeah. Way more than you would like. 

Dave Wallace:  Be cheaper to get a dog. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  I think this is gonna be like temo 10 euros. You just order it, install it, and you have all the features and like, eventually.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. I'm sure it'll be available. It's, I don't think it's available. These technology's 

Georg Molzer:  not really, 

Paul Rogers:  not right now. Not right now. That I, I think eventually when mean you have, uh, you have electric home glazing, which will, uh, dull down or, or darken down in particular situations. And it's, it's fairly, they haven't reached a point in the production where it's, it's necessarily inexpensive.

Georg Molzer:  Mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  Uh, but it could be in the, i some people will come across it in, in, uh, some aircraft models have this 

Georg Molzer:  Star Trek force [00:48:00] feeds. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, that's the next thing. Well, there is this, um, there are interesting glazing technologies like vacuum glass or arrow gel. Uh, but that's more for heat flow for thermal.

Yeah. Uh, rather than, rather than taking care of radiation. But I, I'm not sure. And the one degree, you know, you can solve day lighting with technologies like light pipes or, or fiber optic solutions where you have a collector that's 10 meters away and then you Yeah. But I, I think the physics is fairly simple where, uh, day lighting isn't going to change that much.

It is still a vertical window or a horizontal window that we're talking about. The aperture and the, the architectural sort of facts of lighting a room are not gonna change with technology. That's, that's sort of fine tuning or whatever, but it does enable us to do certain things that maybe we couldn't, couldn't weather wise, just to push.

Georg Molzer:  I'm, I'm just aware of these office [00:49:00] buildings, like even in Vienna 

Paul Rogers:  mm-hmm. 

Georg Molzer:  In, in summer, it, it gets hot and you have like this fully placed facades. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And it gets super hot and you need to invest lots of energy. Well, not if 

Paul Rogers:  done correctly. I mean 

Georg Molzer:  down. Yeah. They 

Paul Rogers:  probably have done, you, you have to, you can't really talk daylight design, you know, there's this assumption that I just want a lot of data That's not true.

The control glare, um, of glare and overheating is really part of the package that 

Georg Molzer:  it should be. 

Paul Rogers:  It, yeah. It, it, it is because, uh, I'm lucky enough to work with, uh, uh, somebody in my office is, is extremely knowledgeable about thermal comfort and he's really been able to open my eyes to sort of the subtlety of airflows and, and how to work with the dialogue of the human body with these sort of energetics of everything around us.

Uh, it's, it's really interesting. I, I, uh. I've, I've sort of opened [00:50:00] more up to, 'cause ultimately you want a good visual environment, which it's extremely important to have a good thermal environment as well. And these, these two are obviously not to be done, uh, exclusively. They quite are done, often done exclusively from one another, but they need to be handled.

And I think it makes a powerful, uh, pair when you have a team that has both of those aspects and fully, because the tendency is often to, uh, actually control the thermal aspects and put a higher priority on that than what maybe the visual, uh, aspects are. So you can get into a, a position where the building is opt optimized against overheating, but nobody's taken into account glare.

Do you need two shading systems or how does it all go together? Because ultimately the building doesn't, isn't there. We're not trying to make the building happy, we're trying to make the occupants happy, but we've designed something where the shading system is really tuned for the building. [00:51:00] 

Georg Molzer:  Mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  Uh, so that, that has, is something that maybe is considered sometimes and maybe less considered others.

Uh, I think there needs to be a, uh, a little more balance and also thinking about the visual environment and that, and how we deal with that. 

Georg Molzer:  What do you mean by visual environment? 

Paul Rogers:  Uh, protection from glare. Yeah. And, and what kind of light is it? The 

Georg Molzer:  glare would be neighboring buildings 

Paul Rogers:  reflect sunglasses.

No, that too, that too. But the majority of glare is when somebody just gets, uh, the sun straight in their face. Okay. But yeah, reflected glare. Uh, there's lots of different cases where, uh, uh, we've seen a bit of an upswing of cases where, uh, people install the photo panels in a, in close in, in tight quarters.

So of course you can get wicked. Reflection off of, uh, so that, that's an aspect, but, uh, glare and just mean too much, too much light coming into the eye. And again, people are very different in what their sensitivity is. Ultimately, you have to provide them with the tool to [00:52:00] regulate and decide when they wanna deploy, uh, that aspect.

So then for thermal, uh, in office buildings, you nor normally the shade is deployed by a machine. Uh, quite often popular when, you know, when the sensor maybe's not set perfectly or a certain condition exists and people are quite happy with the deli environment, but the shades go down, which gets quite a bit darker.

Dave Wallace:  Yep. 

Paul Rogers:  Uh, and then there could be, be some arguments of whether or not when to put it up and, uh, and stuff like that. But then. When you have, it's important, it's important, it's set to reset itself to redeploy the shade up again when the condition of, uh, of glare has passed or of overheating has passed, but then the glare is up, really has to be operated on the user level.

Uh, um, because I've been into offices where people have, uh, one of the offices that I, or offices that I worked at [00:53:00] formerly, um, they hadn't yet outfitted the, um, windows we had just moved and we hadn't yet outfitted the windows for glare protection. Uh, so people were taking like. Old drawings and pasting them, taping them up over the windows and just kind of leaving them there.

Georg Molzer:  Mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  So for me to bring clients in and I'm trying to sell good visual environment and they walk in and see this. Yeah. Now eventually we got the shading in place, but it was quite funny to see people going to different extents and what they would do to try to keep from getting the sun in their face 

Georg Molzer:  face.

It's, it's interesting. We have a customer, sage glass. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And they, they have these automized windows with like sensors 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. The electrical is what it's called. Yeah. Yeah. The non-brand. Nice, 

Georg Molzer:  nice. Yeah. Drop it. It's um. It's good for me to learn as well. Um, and they now they use Shadow Map to replace their sensors because the sensors, they are exactly, they 

Paul Rogers:  exactly 

Georg Molzer:  stop working.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And they just take the software 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  And see when the sun hits that surface. Yeah. And then they trigger [00:54:00] 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. They can inform their sensor based on that kind of data. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  And there's some interesting projects and I do think sensors will continue to develop, but I think, uh, it's really key that it can be underestimated a lot.

What, when, what I do in, you know, with the simulation stuff, just how key, we've got a, a individual at our work who is, uh, specialized in just that, the installation of solar shading. So ultimately he's at a key point to whether or not. That system is going to work. I think it can be underestimated. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll just install it and, and see how it is. And, and in fact, uh, somebody like, uh, Tony is, his name is really critical and, you know, you can, you can envision a car 

Georg Molzer:  mm-hmm. 

Paul Rogers:  Or some technology, but then whoever actually puts that thing together is tremendously important. And, uh, he's quite unique in, in his knowledge.

Uh, [00:55:00] we, we we're very lucky to have that on, on the team. 

Dave Wallace:  So, so I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of keen look, see clouds turning up. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. Oh yeah. Those two of them. Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. Those are, 

Paul Rogers:  they'll, they'll burn off. Don't worry. 

Dave Wallace:  Yeah. No, no, no. Well, no, I mean, I'm just, 

Paul Rogers:  you'll be glad to see them about half an hour. 

Dave Wallace:  Um, what, what else have you got installed for us in terms of ante?

Paul Rogers:  Um, well, I thought, uh, we've, we've been down and we've watched the sun go up over the water and, uh, it was interesting. It really. It was much slower process than I had expect. Now in Scandinavia, we always have this, the, the angle of declination, of the sun is so low that I'm used to extended sunrise, the sunsets, but I thought with a drop of latitude that it would seem more instant, uh, instantaneous.

But actually it took us what an hour 

Dave Wallace:  it was now. Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. And again, this is, 

Dave Wallace:  we were wearing shorts. I, I was 

Paul Rogers:  wearing, I knew it was you. Yeah. 

Dave Wallace:  I was told, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah. Sucker, sucker. Uh, you know, so even, even again, [00:56:00] this is something that, uh, actually I found quite educational. Like, I could see the deed in, I could look it up, and I hadn't seen it in that particular, I hadn't considered that.

So to be there, and actually it was quite educational to, to see how long it took. Um, but we've, we've put you through that. And, uh, so we'll, uh, after we, uh, after we, uh. Finished the podcast here. I figured we will grab a coffee and, and some lunch and head up to the, the castle and the castle's quite nice because, uh, it's extremely high in the air.

Uh, it's not a castle in the sky, but uh, it's about as close as you're gonna come. And what that means is, uh, you don't need a software to tell you that it's always in, in the sun. So we 

Georg Molzer:  checked anyways, right? We, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah, yeah. Because around this time of year, around three o'clock, much of the city, you know, you really have to hunt at three o'clock in, in the afternoon where you're gonna get a sunny place.

There aren't a lot of them. And, and [00:57:00] it's good if you do a little reconnaissance so you can get there early before everybody else. 'cause as soon as the sun acts, by the time the sun hits it, it doesn't take long to fill it up. So ultimately you wanna be in it while it's still in shadow. Uh, and then, and it, 

Dave Wallace:  I mean, you, because when we were walking back, 'cause we had a little walk around 

Paul Rogers:  mm-hmm.

Dave Wallace:  All the cafes were empty. On the terraces except for the ones in the sun, which 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah. But if you have some, uh, pre advanced knowledge there, it'll help you out. Uh, but then we'll, we'll, uh, we'll walk up to the castle and, uh, I don't know if we'll be there long enough to watch the sunset, but I'd even be happy.

I, I 

Georg Molzer:  wanna, I wanna just walk up late and 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  Really aim for the sunset. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  It should be like going down behind the heels, right? 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. To be, to be quite honest with you. I mean, uh, I'd be quite happy to, uh, after we stop recording, just be out here. I really feel that there's not, I mean, my family's not here, so it's not, no [00:58:00] offense to you guys, it's not the perfect situation if my family was here, but I, I do feel that there aren't many places that I'd rather be.

So if we could spend a little bit more time here, uh, get the most out of the sun. Could be cloudy tomorrow. You never know. Could get hit by a bus later on today. You never know. So let's, let's enjoy the, 

Georg Molzer:  the podcast before we Yeah.

Dave Wallace:  I'll give you my pass. No, brilliant. Well, listen, thank you so much for having sharing, 

Paul Rogers:  for being here. It's been great to discuss, uh, everything with you 

Dave Wallace:  guys a lot. I think just, you know, the fact that we've all traveled a distance to spend time under the sun and talk about the sun is I, is very special as well.

Yeah, 

Paul Rogers:  it is. 

Georg Molzer:  You like one of the pioneers, you know, like for, for such a long time in this field, quite a niche field, you, you could say. And, um, I, I guess it was some [00:59:00] lonely times as well. I could imagine. I think like, yeah, all of us kind of went through the same journey in a way, and now we found each other and it's just cool to meet people across the world to, yeah.

Yeah, 

Paul Rogers:  I was so happy with my starting to meet these kids Rolling Outta school in 2015 with master's degrees who were every bit as wanting to nerd out about the sun as, you know, talking about all these equation of time or the Anna, all these things. Yeah. It's just, it's fascinating to if you, it can be missed and there's a real beauty in it.

Uh, the patterning of light, you know, as we live our lives and go about things. And if you can ha start to notice that layer of information, I think, I think it makes life a true. 

Georg Molzer:  Do you think there is. More movement in this direction, like more people. I do, I'm thinking like, I saw this post recently [01:00:00] that, that high-rise buildings in China, they do have now very big balcony platforms.

Like you could even call it a balcony. It's like, like big in your terrace. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. There's a, 

Georg Molzer:  you, you always have sun exposure, even like there's another one above you. And this is something which I think is really driven by the awareness of 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah, I mean that has a double-edged sword because if the climate's right, you can get a lot of hours on that balcony.

But in a climate like the Scandinavian climate, there's, you're sort of sacrificing a lot of the indoor light for maybe limited of door access during the year. But it's a tough, it's a tough question as to the balance there. Uh, it's, there's things you can do where the balcony is not over a window, but there's a door connected to it and then it wraps around a part of this F slot that is 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah.

Paul Rogers:  Solid. And then it's like you got, 

Georg Molzer:  even if it's intelligently done, you have this like towards the. The east and the west, you know? Yeah, 

Paul Rogers:  yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  When the sun is still low on the horizon and it Oh, yeah. Shoots definitely warm. And then [01:01:00] when it's going to the, the south, like you have some shading. 

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. 

Georg Molzer:  The caves were, were done like tens of thousands of years ago.

Paul Rogers:  Like anything else, if, if you look into it, you can really, uh, do a good job. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  If it's just sort of mass produced, as in every, everybody gets a two meter balcony regardless of their orientation. And then, then maybe there's, yeah, 

Georg Molzer:  let's hope they're more intelligent about it. Yeah. Why not? There's software.

Paul Rogers:  Yeah. I think, I think it's, it's, it, it makes, it's not the, it's a bit of a waste if it just ends up dark and, and storage for bikes. 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  And that, and that has happened. So like most things with daylight, if you, there's so many things involved. As, you know, the solar, different solar angles and, and the different angles and geometries of things around it.

It's, it's very complex to try to, it's difficult to make. There's some generalizations, but each case to look at it in detail is, is sort of a necessary thing. If you're [01:02:00] gonna gonna, you can't just take a one size fits all 

Georg Molzer:  Yeah. 

Paul Rogers:  Approach to it. And I guess in mass protection of housing, that's often the way I've gotta appreciate that to some degree because it holds costs down.

Uh, but there, uh, maybe could be a little bit more, uh, discussion about, well what is it that actually houses actually working, uh, when people are, are living there living and are they getting what they think they're getting? 

Dave Wallace:  Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.