Before a single wall was drawn on the seventh floor at The Shard, the floor was studied as an empty space and the sun was traced across it. Everything that happened after was based on the findings of that study.
Why a tower needs the study more, not less
The Shard is daylit on every side, so with regard to a building glazed all around, it is crucial to determine. The different quality of light on every elevation at every hour, and with a floor plate so high, the close neighbours cast shadows at particular times. Level 7 also has an irregular perimeter, structural columns in awkward places and a party wall shared with the next door tenant.
The tower and its surroundings were modelled as plain white massing and the floor plate was rendered at three hours: nine o’clock in the morning, noon and four o’clock in the afternoon. Three drawings, one floor, no furniture.
What the drawings said
The north-eastern stretch of the plate was bright, with minimal influence from the buildings around it, and it stayed bright for most of the day. West of the core the picture was the opposite: obstructions, columns and irregular angles interrupting the light and casting shadows across it. By noon the main office still held a good level of lighting throughout, and the kitchen side and the western face were at their best.
The four o'clock drawing produced the most useful finding of the three. One area is darker than the rest of the floor all day and gets darker as the day goes on, for three reasons that compound: the entrance is obstructed from the sun's path on the east to west axis, the neighbouring towers throw shadow across it later on, and the dividing wall to the office next door blocks the solar arc for all of the second half of the day. No amount of glazing was going to improve that zone.
From a drawing to a plan
Desks were located where the light best served this purpose and the meeting hub was sited in the dark zone. A meeting room is used intermittently, by different people, for forty minutes at a time, so it made good sense to utilise maximum light for all day desk usage.
The kitchen and dining took the western face, which is at its best over lunch, the hour that side of the floor is busiest. The entrance, in the zone where the sun barely reaches, was lit and finished without the introduction of further daylight requirements, a dark ceiling, a media wall, an illuminated mark in the floor tile, warmth from the materials rather than from the windows.
The other half of the brief
Light is not only something to chase. The brief asked for glare on screens to be considered and for desks to be positioned for daylight, which are two requirements combatting each other. The same study answers both, because a drawing that indicates where the light falls will also show where it lands uncomfortably. .
