Vail Symposium | The Equity of Daylight

How do engineering, design, and access to windows intersect to improve our well-being?  Should someone’s position in a company influence their access to daylight? Often it does. What is the relationship between light and productivity and mental health?  What are the impacts of light pollution on ecology? Does light color matter? In this interactive event, light-engineering pioneer Nancy Clanton answers these questions and more as she talks about people-focused architecture: her innovative work that has ranged from the International Dark Sky Association to the Greening of the White House and the Empire State Building, and the equity of access to light.

Nancy has worked extensively and collaborated globally in projects such as implementing the EU guidelines on buildings and windows and the impact of access to daylight on productivity and health in her engineering work. She is working on advanced light projects for school crossings, light impact on wildlife, and dark sky initiatives.  She has also recently been named an Adjunct Researcher at the University of Alaska as she is working on light and microgrid solutions for communities experiencing energy-access and building challenges with permafrost shift due to climate change. Her work intergrates artistic design, eco-awareness, and equity. In this program, she shares how these important aspects come together and interact to merge environmental awareness, asthetic design, and health.