Daylight, Stimulator of Happiness and Psychological Health of the Inhabitants of Residential Compounds, Case Study: Districts 7, 8, 12 and 14 in the city of Isfahan

The relationship between manmade environment and spaces’ users is a mutual one in such a way that the same way that the environmental situations and conditions influence the building, the building’s conditions and properties, as well, intensively influence the space users. The improvement of the residential spaces inter alia the various kinds of artificial environments that have to support the physical and psychological health of the residents is of a great importance because the family members’ presence in this space can considerably contribute to the betterment of their physical and psychological health. The effects of the daylight as one of the primary indicators of the residential buildings on the humans’ life and liveliness can be assessed within the format of two subsystems, namely perceptional psychology and psychological biology. This is while the common lighting strategies are concentrated on the energy output and/or supply of the required light for performing the tasks and/or they have been devised in laboratory explorations and under artificial sky and with no presence of the human beings. Thus, the present study has been conducted with the objective of elaborating the relationship between daylight and psychological health and happiness of the inhabitants of the residential compounds and increasing of the individual happiness so as to figure out the quality of the relationship between the daylight and happiness of the inhabitants of the residential compounds in the city of Isfahan. The study has been carried out based on a causal-comparative plan and makes use of a survey method to describe the correlation between the variables through taking advantage of a cross-sectional method during the years from 2013 to 2014 in low-rise buildings (3-7 storeys) in Isfahan. To determine the happiness status, use has been made of Oxford and Fordyce’s happiness assessment instrument.  Then, the obtained data were analyzed using SPSS via taking advantage of the descriptive statistics. The data analyses indicated that there is a significant difference between the happiness levels of the inhabitants of the residential complexes and the amount of light entering each unit meaning that the higher the light entering the residential units, the more the inhabitants are happy. It seems that the optimal and purposive designing of the daylight in the residence space somehow influences the improvement of the inhabitants’ psychological health and happiness.