Borrowed Light
This pattern is shaped by
Problem
Interior rooms — bathrooms, hallways, closets, stairwells — often have no direct access to exterior walls and therefore no natural light. They become permanently dependent on artificial lighting, disconnected from the time of day and the weather outside.
Evidence and Discussion
Borrowed light — light transmitted from one room to another through transoms, glazed partitions, internal windows, or glass blocks — is a traditional technique that allows daylight to penetrate deep into a building without compromising privacy or acoustic separation. A translucent glass panel above a bathroom door, a transom window between a corridor and a living room, an internal window between a kitchen and a central hallway — each brings daylight one room deeper.
Therefore
for every interior room without direct exterior windows, provide at least one source of borrowed light — a transom, an internal window, a glazed panel, or a clerestory that connects to a daylit room. The borrowed light need not be transparent (translucent glass preserves privacy); it only needs to transmit the *quality* of daylight — its color, its change over time, its indication that there is a world beyond the wall.