Earn AIA Credits While Learning to
Design Better Buildings for Humans

Buildings are designed to connect occupants to the outside world — but that connection comes with trade-offs. This course examines how architects can manage the relationship between daylight, thermal comfort, glare, and privacy to create buildings that genuinely work for the people inside them. Meeting energy code doesn’t have to mean less glazing. It means better glazing.

Luxury homes depend on a careful balance between daylight, views, privacy, glare control, and thermal comfort. This course explores how architects can avoid the common problems of overused transparent glazing — such as overheating, visual discomfort, and loss of privacy — by treating translucent glazing as a third strategy between opaque walls and vision glass. Participants will learn how controlled natural light can support wellness, elegance, and performance while informing practical, code-conscious design decisions.

Most translucent wall systems are specified based on familiarity, not performance. This course takes an objective look at the full range of translucent wall options — from Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRP) and polycarbonate to glass-based systems — examining how each performs across daylight quality, energy efficiency, durability, and cost over time.

Creating high-value buildings requires a careful balance between daylight, glare control, views, privacy, and envelope performance. This course takes a deeper look at how daylight behaves in architectural space and how architects can harness it through better light distribution, stronger glare control, and smarter glazing decisions. Participants will examine why poor light distribution leads to high contrast, discomfort, and blinds, and how translucent glazing can help create more comfortable, energy-conscious, and visually effective buildings.