Just imagine the following scene: You are in your home in the luxurious Arsuf neighborhood, enjoying an unimpeded view of the sea. It is Friday afternoon and a cool end-of-summer breeze is blowing outside. You are sprawled on the sofa with an iced drink in hand and raise your eyes to the giant window overlooking the ocean - only to see nothing. The setting sun blinds you, and now you are sorry that you did not invest more in planning the direction of natural light in your dream home.

Natural light influences architecture. Studies have proven that exposure to natural light improves our standard of living and lifts our mood. A room with good natural lighting will appear more spacious to us and better aired, and will make us want to stay longer - as opposed to a room, which is artificially lit and creates a feeling of suffocation.

There are a number of rules of thumb for planning the direction of natural light. Northern exposure is preferable to allow indirect rays into the house, as sunshine comes mainly from the south. The northern exposure is therefore recommended for large apertures.

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The southern exposure is more problematic. In the winter, sunshine tends to enter from the south so the windows facing that direction will bring welcome light and warmth into the house. However, when the sunshine is fierce in the summer, the house will be difficult to cool. The solution to this problem is to create shading that will prevent the strong sunshine from entering in the summer and permit the winter sunshine to warm the house.

The eastern and western fronts are problematic because the sun's rays are direct during both sunrise and sunset, and exterior shading does not prevent this. In theses situations, it would be best to find suitable uses for the rooms that face in these directions.

Setting up the living room at a western exposure is problematic, because the space is most often used in the afternoon hours when the sun is setting to the west. The sun will blind those sitting there and heat up the room. Therefore, you will find yourselves sitting in a living room with closed blinds and an air conditioner going at full blast instead of enjoying the breeze that comes from the westerly direction.

Nevertheless, Israeli architects have a strong affinity for large windows, particularly in living rooms. If all of us were blond and Israel were Sweden, such huge windows would be suitable for our environment. However, since in Israel the weather is sunny for most of the year and there is plenty of light that brings a great deal of heat with it, we have to operate our air conditioners overtime.

A planning conflict

Arik Abitbul, an architect and interior designer who specializes in private construction and lectures at the Building College, says, "the fashion of installing windows from floor to ceiling in rooms with southern or western exposures is not recommended. It is much easier for an architect to deal with the facade of a building, from the aesthetic point of view, by opening large and numerous apertures, but perhaps another, more functional solution, would be better and not necessarily less beautiful.

"These windows cannot be opened for most of the hours of the day because there is direct sunlight in the direction of the house and it blinds those who are inside. At all events, the planning of the windows must be done in a rational fashion and bearing in mind the location of the house on the plot and the plot's location in the general surroundings," he explains.

Abitbul advises those buying a house or apartment from a contractor not to make do with choosing an apartment from a catalogue but rather to check how the entire building is situated. According to this, they can choose the exposures of the apartment they wish to buy. He says that if you are merely shown a sketch of an apartment, isolated from the rest of the building, you should request to see the plans for the entire building.

The direction of the windows, says Estie Wolff, an interior designer at the Wolff-Carmi architectural firm, depends also on "what there is outside." In other words, how the surroundings look and what can be seen from the window. If there is a service road for a mini-market on one side of the house, there is no point in making this the main view from the house. "When houses are constructed in a heavily developed area, it is not recommended to put in large windows. Glass facades (floor to ceiling windows - S.S.) are suitable for 'estates' and large plots on moshavim - plots with a great deal of privacy and a large number of trees."

She adds: "If there is a problem of sun rays and direct sunshine and it is not possible, or it is difficult, to change the aperture, it is possible to get an expert to paste sealants on the window that will lessen the amount of sunshine that enters the home. One can also install windows with double-glazing with shading placed in the space between the sheets of window ( a solution for the 'greenhouse effect' that a curtain or regular window cannot provide - S.S.), or a window with anti-sun facing that prevents the entry of the sun's rays to a certain extent. But this last solution has a certain disadvantage, in that it distorts the color of the light from the outside. If the glass is gray, then the view from outside will also appear to be gray, even if the sun is shining and the trees are blossoming."

Planting of greenery opposite the apertures can also decrease the amount of direct sunlight that enters the house. In the past, Israeli architects knew how to find varied solutions to the problems of shading that were translated into interesting architectural language in different buildings. One example is the vertical shading that creates the main facade of the Histadrut's central committee building on Arlosoroff Street in Tel Aviv, which was planned by Dov Carmi.

The shading, in this case, turned the facade of the exposed concrete building into something more elegant. Today, too, shading solutions have become the dominant feature in an architect's plans for a building. Architect Yaakov Peretz, who has a private firm in the Galilee, planned an electric mechanism to deal with the issue of natural light at his house in the Kamon community.

"I designed a different version of the old-time 'Trisol' (with pull-up slats) blinds, with the aim of creating a golden mean between the desire to enjoy the scenery outside and live as part of it, and the desire to preserve privacy and provide protection against direct sunlight. With this in mind, I developed an electric mechanism with revolving wood planks that creates about 100 meters of changing facades. The facades know when to change the shading by choice and they are designed particularly to create a difference between day and night and between winter and summer," Peretz says.

Peretz built a home with an almost entirely glass facade. By operating the plank mechanism, it is possible to open the front and enjoy the outside. By closing it, it is possible to have privacy and prevent direct sunshine from entering, according to the way in which the inside space is being used or the time of day. "Light and shade are part of a complete and broad philosophical approach which deals with such terms as open and closed, and private and public, and which tries to examine how to build a house that changes and adapts itself to the right hour of the day's cycle," he explains.

Clever painting

Even if you are refurbishing before Rosh Hashana, it is possible to solve some of the problems caused by natural lighting. If there is a room with only a little natural lighting, it can be put to better use by painting the room with light colors and a shiny, or partly shiny, finish. These colors will not "swallow up" the light but rather return it to the room and brighten it up. Dark colors and a smooth finish, on the other hand, absorb some of the sun's rays and, if used correctly, can help a room that "suffers" from excess sunlight.

Flexibility in the use of the rooms can also help solve the problem of too much direct sunlight. If your work room is hot during the day hours because of direct sunshine, this can affect your work when you are looking at a computer screen. If your children's room faces east and they therefore wake up at 5 A.M. from the sunlight, it is possible to start the new year by switching the rooms to gain a better night's sleep and more comfortable working conditions.