City Sunlight
Zhen Ni (Ni Zhen)
Sunlight is a crucial factor in urban design, influencing both the accessibility and quantity of sunlight that residents can experience. Beyond this, sunlight interacts with urban materials, creating distinctive visual and optical landscapes within the city. This thesis takes the interaction between contemporary cities and sunlight as a starting point, exploring how sunlight shapes the urban form and how modern cities reprocess and redistribute sunlight.
City Sunlight
At the moment of sunrise, countless rays of sunlight reach the city instantaneously, traveling at the speed of light. Some of these rays strike opaque buildings, where the light lingers on the outer walls. The unimpeded light continues along the contours of the buildings until it reaches the ground or other opaque surfaces, forming shadows of the buildings as it moves through the city. When the light hits reflective materials, it bounces off, redirecting to other parts of the city. Some light passes through transparent
Sunlight Reprocessing
The entire city functions like a giant device, with concrete, metal, and glass used to block sunlight, reflect it, or let it enter buildings. It determines when and where sunlight enters a corner and when it leaves that space. On a larger scale, every building in the city helps reshape the sunlight.
Thesis Book Cover
The City: Sunlight Reprocessing-Thesis Book Inner Pages
The visual manifestations of how the city reprocesses light can be categorized into three forms: blocking, reflecting, and shaping. This chapter explores how sunlight is transformed by the structure of the city by observing and collecting different forms of sunlight within the urban environment.
Evolving Cities under Eternal Sun-Thesis Book Pages
Cities have continuously evolved alongside the development of human civilization. From the earliest cities in Mesopotamia to metropolitan areas worldwide nowadays, cities' structures, layouts, and styles vary greatly. However, throughout history, one constant has remained: the sun. From sunrise to sunset, sunlight illuminates every corner with unwavering regularity, not just for one day but for thousands of years. In different stages of urban development, the role of sunlight has also varied.
