At the entry looking upward towards a Velux skylight, a vertical "sleeve" is made of stacked end grain plywood. The theme of vertical and horizontal architectural elements providing different environmental perspectives carries through to the rest of the home. Horizontal forms look out to the lake, while the vertical columns look up the sky.

Haines House by Christopher Polly in Newtown, Australia

A freestanding Antonio Lupi tub defines the updated master bath, which also features an open-plan layout and a skylight by Velux.

At breakfast, Arthur multitasks while seated at the dining table. He hand-stenciled the pattern on the wall in the background.

A skylit shower.

In the bedroom wing, sunlight shines down from the Plexiglass bubbles. Steel in the cutaways reflects the light.

“It was important to site the house in such a way that it had views to both the field and the forest, but it also wasn’t visible from the main road,” says Lewis. VELUX skylights bring extra light into the home.

“A critical aspect of the project was the incorporation of natural light and ventilation within a broad footprint,” Simpson says. Conventionally private areas, like bedrooms and bathrooms, are therefore reinterpreted with more openness in mind. For instance, this bathroom’s skylights mirror those found throughout the rest of the property. The bathtub, basins, and showerhead were all purchased at the Australian retailer Reece.

Judin was fascinated by the abandoned gas station ever since he first discovered it in 1992. At the time, it had been unused for seven years. He finally purchased it in 2005 and transformed it into a one-of-a-kind residence.

Blurring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, this 1,300-square-foot home on the island of Honshu, Japan by architect Keisuke Maeda has multiple windows and skylights surrounding its concrete base.

Like the communal spaces, the bedroom features a shining subway tile wall.

The Sculpture Gallery in architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House Estate in New Canaan, Connecticut is a skylighted space with an almost entirely glass roof that showcases Johnson’s art collection.

Inside the house, the speed of the planet’s rotation is indicated by the rate of the light beam’s movement over the floor and walls. When the Burkes first moved in, the speed of shifting light made them dizzy.

The walnut staircase and slide in a Chicago town house leads from the main level to the basement. To protect people on the ride down, a “crash pad” fashioned from a standard gymnastic mat covers the wall at the slide’s base.

A gradient of skylights in the hallway ranges from a vermilion triangle at the master bedroom end to a bright yellow at the living area.

The subway tile-lined bathroom was kept as simple as possible, with Hansgrohe fixtures and cabinets made of vertical-grain Douglas fir above a top-mounted Duravit sink. Since installing a window was unfeasible given the bathroom's proximity to other properties, Storey added a skylight over the shower.

A newly expanded window over the atrium allows glimpses of the surrounding neighborhood.

Kristine climbs out onto the concrete-tile roof deck through a hatch door in the upstairs loft.

The couple supplemented the rawness of the open living area with funky secondhand finds from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

A wedge-shaped skylight allows natural light to suffuse the interiors. The architects preserved a palette of dark, natural materials on the ground floor.

Light is controlled in the studio to facilitate the artist’s work. Half of the studio is flooded with northern light for traditional art forms such as sculpture and drawing, while the other half minimizes light to avoid screen glare for digital work.

The skylights are constantly changing the home's interiors. It's "not just day/night, or dark/light," says Bernheimer, "but the quality of light...changes at any given hour, depending on where clouds are, where the sun is, whether the moon is full or not, all dependent on the time of day, time of year, and so forth."

The gable roofs of the house are expressed on the second floor, where the lofted ceilings are covered with birch plywood.

“This way you have a sequence,” Lynch explains. “The stair is a circulator, and after you take off your coat, you can go downstairs to the powder room or up to the living floor.” On the other side of the millwork, he devised built-in storage and niches for display, as shown in the master bedroom, located on the second floor.

A large skylight looms above a Duravit tub and a Runtal Radia towel warmer in the en suite bathroom.

Natural light filters in through a series of apertures, including a clerestory window above the kitchen area. Just below, a Ligne Roset chair rests on the terrazzo floor.

A wall of bamboo adjacent to the atrium floor provides a dramatic and seductive green entrance—“natural art,” Eric calls it.

In the upstairs bedroom, a square skylight opens to a patch of sky.

The staircase divides the house in two, separating the kitchen from the other living spaces. A large skylight lets in ample illumination.

The abstract geometry of the exterior allows for unique openings and this sklylight, which provides natural light to the staff throughout the day. "One of my ambitions is to place openings, windows, and roof lights strategically, so you get a sense of the time of day and the weather," says Brooks.

To add to the feeling of spaciousness, bookcases are set back on the upstairs landing.

Structural changes were immediately made to the original shell to bring in more natural light. The small windows on the front façade were dramatically replaced with a folding window assembly that stretches the entire width of the room. Skylights were cleverly added slightly beneath the peak pitch of the roof to funnel light towards the mezzanine, while still illuminating the main floor below. Warm, rich iroko wood spans the ceiling and wall, and also extends to the seating bench beneath the window.

The bed, also by Hynam, is on casters, allowing ten Hompel to move it to gaze at the stars.

In the bedroom, an IKEA bed frame and CADO wall unit are drenched with natural light during the day from the skylights overhead. “The effect of daylight through skylights is very different than from a window,” Hart says. “You feel every minute of the day as light in the space ebbs and flows with the passing clouds.”

“The owners envisioned a place that engaged with the outdoors while providing accommodating spaces for their off-season training for triathlons,” Flato notes. A 75-foot-long lap pool on the west end of the home comes in handy during practice.