DYNAMIC LIGHTING FOR WINDOW-LIMITED INTERIORS: A LAYERED FRAMEWORK OF DAYLIGHT CUES, ARTIFICIAL LIGHT, AND FRACTAL LIGHT-IN-MOTION

Abstract

Background: People spend the majority of their time indoors, yet many interior environments provide limited access to natural daylight and outdoor views. This lack of daylight can reduce temporal awareness, visual comfort, and connection to natural environmental rhythms. Although dynamic lighting is increasingly used in practice, most systems remain limited to programmed changes in illuminance or correlated color temperature (CCT), without fully capturing the spatial, directional, and patterned qualities of daylight. This gap highlights the need for a more comprehensive approach that integrates temporal, spatial, and perceptual dimensions of light in window-limited interiors. Method: This study adopts a research-through-design methodology to develop a layered dynamic lighting system that integrates daylight cues, artificial lighting, and fractal light-in-motion. The research combines field observation, simulation (AGI32 and DIALux), visual synthesis, and physical prototyping within a full-scale lighting lab environment. Daylight behavior—including direction, intensity, temporal variation, and spatial gradients—is analyzed through sun path simulation and translated into controllable lighting parameters such as beam angle, tilt, illuminance, color temperature, and pattern behavior. These parameters are applied to a layered system consisting of ambient lighting, directional lighting, and fractal pattern projection, enabling the translation of daylight characteristics into artificial lighting conditions. Discussion, and Future Directions: The findings demonstrate that artificial lighting can reproduce key daylight characteristics such as direction, intensity, and temporal variation, while the integration of fractal light-in-motion introduces additional spatial complexity and enhances temporal legibility. The study defines three evaluation criteria—perceptual clarity, temporal legibility, and spatial impact—to assess the effectiveness of daylight simulation. Results indicate that a coordinated, parameter-based layered system can simulate daylight behavior more effectively than conventional static or CCT-based dynamic lighting approaches. However, the system remains limited by the absence of sensor-based control and motorized optical technologies, and findings are based on design evaluation rather than empirical user testing. Future research should focus on adaptive control systems, real-time environmental integration, and human-centered evaluation to further validate and expand the applicability of the proposed framework.