Daylight in Architecture 2026, a free evening event hosted by the AJ and VELUX at the Barbican Centre in London, will bring together architects and daylighting specialists on Wednesday 14 October 2026 to examine how natural light can be drawn deeper into residential buildings and circulation spaces.
The event opens at 6.15pm in the Frobisher Rooms and runs through to 10.15pm. It is free to attend, with registration available through the AJ.
Three residential case studies lead the programme
The evening begins with three practice-led case studies, each focused on a recently completed residential project and each illustrating a distinct approach to daylight-led design. Kim Loddo of Inglis Badrashi Loddo will present Walled Courtyard House, a London home concealed within a historic former walled garden plot. Nimi Attanayake will discuss Evermore by nimtim architects, a Suffolk bungalow transformed into an accessible and future-proofed home. James Alder of James Alder Architects will close the trio with Tabberner Cook House, a split-level extension in Crystal Palace that was shortlisted for this year’s AJ Small Projects award.
Each presentation will examine the choices made to admit, diffuse or direct natural light, and what those choices cost in technical terms as well as what they deliver in spatial and occupant experience. A panel discussion and Q&A, chaired by the AJ’s Rob Wilson, will follow, giving attendees the opportunity to push further into the challenges involved.
A guest speaker will then address the broader relationship between natural light and occupant wellbeing before Richard Williams, senior architectural development manager at VELUX, delivers the keynote. Williams will focus on the tools and modelling approaches architects can use to support better daylight-led design, drawing on current technology to show how analysis can inform specification decisions from early-stage massing through to detailed layout.
Daylight in Architecture 2026 meets at a Barbican in transition
Networking drinks will take place in the Barbican’s conservatory, which adds a layer of context to the evening’s themes. The conservatory is due to close in early 2027 as part of a major restoration programme for the wider Barbican Centre. According to Allies and Morrison, the Barbican was designed by Chamberlin Powell and Bon and built between 1965 and 1982, making it one of Britain’s most ambitious examples of Brutalist urban design.
The scale of what is planned for the complex is considerable. Design Boom reports that the renewal programme carries a budget of £231 million and that the Barbican Centre itself will close for a full year beginning in June 2028. Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan Studio are leading the works.
For practitioners working on the embodied carbon implications of major heritage refurbishments, those figures carry weight. A £231 million programme on a concrete-heavy Brutalist structure built across nearly two decades presents every kind of challenge in the fabric: thermal performance, airtightness, daylighting into deep-plan spaces, and the carbon cost of repair versus replacement. That the evening’s networking will take place inside the conservatory before that space closes for works gives the daylighting discussion an unusually immediate backdrop.
The AJ and VELUX have framed Daylight in Architecture 2026 around residential interiors and circulation specifically, reflecting the growing pressure on architects to demonstrate how homes meet health and wellbeing standards in planning applications and BREEAM assessments. Daylight factors and average daylight factors are increasingly scrutinised by local authorities, particularly in higher-density residential schemes where internal layouts risk pushing habitable rooms far from external openings.
Registration for the event is free and open now. The Frobisher Rooms are located within the Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Doors open at 6.15pm on Wednesday 14 October 2026.
