Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture

Provincial Capitol Building, Toulouse, France

Architect Venturi Scott Brown & Associates

Associate architects Hermet-Blanc-Lagausie-Momens-Atelier A4 and Anderson/Swartz Architects

Lighting design Cabinet Berthon

Client Conseil General de la Haute-Garonne, Toulouse, France

The capitol building in Toulouse was won in
architectural competition, and consists of an
administrative and legislative complex to
include offices, the assembly chamber, public
services and support spaces, with three levels
of underground parking. The design challenge
for the architects was to introduce this
inherently large building complex into a small-

scale residential and commercial area of

Toulouse, a challenge fully met by the design.

What is important in the context of this

book however, is in the nature and solution to

the daylighting, and no more so than in the

assembly chamber. For whilst the layout and

design of the administative offices allows them

to be lit by conventional windows, the

solution to the lighting of the assembly

chamber called for an entirely different

approach.

It was important that the interior of the

hall should appear to be a legislative chamber,

not an amphitheatre; and for this reason the

hall should give the impression of being daylit,

even if for reasons dictated by the use of

electronic projection, the hall needed on

occasions to be darkened.

The solution adopted is to allow controlled

daylight to enter from clerestory windows

around the top of the space, whilst the

impression of daylight is gained from a series

of false windows at a lower level. The

clerestorey windows allow the view of real

clouds during the day and introduce daylight

into the hall, controlled when needed by

movable sun screens. The false windows give

the impression of lightness, which is desirable

for meetings held during the day, and can

continue during the evening, but is

controllable when needed for the electronic

projection.

Behind the the false windows are gently lit

acoustical walls with murals depicting

Margritte-like clouds. The impression

received by the combination of real and

simulated daylight was modelled at the design

stage by computer modelling,

The architects have described their daylight

strategy as ‘more intuitive’ than by means of

quantative analysis, but nevertheless, a good

deal of schematic design was undertaken to

investigate the possible advantages ofbrise

76 Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture

The plan at first floor level

The section

Venturi Scott-Brown & Associates

Venturi Scott-Brown & Associates