Teaching Solar Smarter: New Opportunities for Tropical Design Education

What is it about?

Understanding how sunlight affects buildings is especially important in tropical regions, where managing heat and light is a big part of good design. But many architecture students struggle to learn about solar geometry—the science of how the sun moves and how it impacts buildings—because traditional teaching methods don’t explain it well. Our study looked at how students in Costa Rica and Malaysia learn about this topic. We found that most students feel they don’t know enough, but they do see it as important for their future careers. They also prefer using both hands-on and digital tools to learn. These results show a clear need to update and improve how solar design is taught, especially for tropical climates. To help address this, we created a free digital toolkit that gives students easy access to useful, no-cost tools for learning about daylight design. Explore the toolkit here: https://arquis.ucr.ac.cr/investigacion/proyectos-investigacion/luz-tropical/

Featured Image

Photo by sq lim on Unsplash

Photo by sq lim on Unsplash

Why is it important?

As the climate keeps getting hotter, especially in tropical countries, we need buildings that stay cool and comfortable without relying so much on air conditioning. That means future architects must understand how to design with sunlight in mind—how to let in natural light without overheating a space. But many students in today's Architecture schools aren’t learning these skills well enough because current teaching methods are outdated or too technical. Our work is timely because it looks at how we teach solar design and shows where the gaps are. By improving how this subject is taught, especially in tropical regions, we can help train architects who design better, more energy-efficient buildings—something that affects everyone’s quality of life and the planet’s future.

Perspectives