Enlightening wellbeing in the home: the impact of natural light design on perceived happiness and sadness in residential spaces

As more people move towards work-from-home options during the COVID-19 pandemic, residential indoor environments are increasingly becoming places where we spend a large share of our time living, working and studying. While the relevance of indoor environments for our emotional wellbeing is well established, little is known about the specific aspects of residential indoor spaces that affect negative and positive emotions. This article studies the relationship between natural lighting in the home and the emotional subjective wellbeing (E-SWB) of its inhabitants. In a randomised control trial, we test the hypothesis that natural lighting improvements in housing contribute to residents' E-SWB, determining which aspects of housing daylight design are more relevant for this. A total of 750 participants took part in the experiment and rated, according to their perceived happiness or sadness, a series of 3D computer simulations representing seven types of natural lighting improvements in the home. The results show that the natural lighting conditions of housing significantly impact people's perceptions of happiness and sadness, with settings that have an increased amount of daylight entering the home leading to the greatest impacts.