# Right to light legislation in your country?



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

alexandru.mircea said:


> ^apologies for using the plural "density trolls". Turns out it was, mhays, you posting on the previous page too.


I bet Manhattan south of 80th is too much for your little brain to handle. Oh however do they live! Better write laws making Manhattan impossible to create elsewhere! 

If liking places like Manhattan makes me a "troll," then so be it.


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## Eric Offereins (Jan 1, 2004)

alexandru.mircea said:


> ^btw, from what I see regularly in photos posted in the European Skylines thread, Rotterdam has really good planning in terms of access to light (and green space etc).
> 
> Here's London doing it right, in the Greenwich Peninsula redevelopment:


That is a great example. In our country, the minimum amount of daylight in buildings is regulated in this law, which indicates how many m2 windows per m2 floor is needed:

http://www.bouwbesluitonline.nl/Inhoud/docs/wet/bb2012/hfd3/afd3-11


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

^Thanks Eric!



mhays said:


> I bet Manhattan south of 80th is too much for your little brain to handle. Oh however do they live! Better write laws making Manhattan impossible to create elsewhere!
> 
> If liking places like Manhattan makes me a "troll," then so be it.


Yes. You've nailed. What genious. How didn't I see this. What the Romanian legislation is stopping from happening in the rural outskirts of this particular provincial city of Eastern Europe is a new Manhattan. Just to make sure, I'm going to post again the picture of this Manhattan that has been ruled against:


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Let's all remember the amount of sunlight in winter changes a lot at Northern latitudes, there is a substantial difference on winter sunlight between Barcelona or Berlin. Not only the daylight duration, but, for the purpose of direct sunlight, the angle of the sun and the maximum envelopes one can get away with before building's shadows are cast on other windows, even at peak time.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

alexandru.mircea said:


> ^Thanks Eric!
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. You've nailed. What genious. How didn't I see this. What the Romanian legislation is stopping from happening in the rural outskirts of this particular provincial city of Eastern Europe is a new Manhattan. Just to make sure, I'm going to post again the picture of this Manhattan that has been ruled against:


Do you drink a little before posting? Who said anything about small towns?


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

^ I did. It's the case based on which I started this thread. The court ruled that the block infringed on that house's legal right to light (as defined by Romanian law), and the case came up in national media as the first finalised court case to deal with this issue. You said this legislation is preventing a Manhattan from happening. But in reality a Manhattan isn't going to happen anywhere in Romania, with or without the right to light legislation. If there's something going to happen, it's a La Défense type CBD in Northern Bucharest, here:










Historically, Bucharest has modeled itself after Paris ever since the mid 1850s, so this is no surprise....


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

So I became curious how are people live in Manhattan in terms of light exposure and did a small "research". Turns out that for a historical city, people live very, very well; the street grid pattern is very rational and allows for sunlight to lit, in turns, every building. The street width is also very generous, so even the ground floor seems to be getting good amounts of sunlight. To me it looks better even than its Catalan or Dutch counterparts of the same era, nevermind French or Italian urbanism. And even where residential buildings are in minority compared to tall office buildings, there seems to be enough space for the sun to sneak in and provide decent direct sunlight. Not to speak of indirect light, which is aplenty as the streets are wide. 

What I did was to do 20 random immersions on Manhattan streets via Google's Street View. I don't know Manhattan at all so I picked the places randomly, with the only condition being that the preview shows at least one residential building in the place I was picking. There are just two exceptions where I "descended" onto the streets with only office architecture around. 

Here goes:




























^ amazing to see such old one floor homes perfectly lit in the heart of Manhattan, I guess stereotypes are stronger than reality


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

The two non-residential streets that I sampled, understandably darker:



















Back to areas with more residential:



















^despite the brick architecture and the low heights, these may be however office buildings, I think




























^the area seems largely non-residential but one building has balconies, so it *could* be residential. Well lit even in such a densely built area...










^ I love how this old corner house near Broadway gets absolutely perfect light even as it lies in a forrest of towers...



















^least good lighting I could find in all my immersions, still pretty decent. At noon the whole façade should be bathed in sun even if it's not a sun that can go deep into the rooms. I doubt there are appartments still used for *living*, there, but I can't rule it out either so I've kept it.

Turns out there are only 19 places to show, one was a double.


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

Yesterday I felt like an innuit at the end of the polar winter! Sun finally entered out appartment for the first time in half a year. It only lasted 20 minutes, from 17:39 to 17:59. 

I can't wait to get the **** out of here, which is going to happen in a couple of months. Having learnt our lesson, our future home will have a perfect exposition to a large square, looking East.


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