Beyond Daylight: Why Access to Natural Light and Exterior Views Matters in Public Facilities 

Authored by:
Paul Michell, Vice President of Government, Managing Partner
Katey Trepanier, Senior Interior Designer

Communities invest significant resources in public facilities intended to serve employees and residents for generations. During planning and design, decisions regarding windows, daylight, and exterior views are often evaluated through the lenses of cost, energy performance, privacy, security, and operational efficiency. While these are important considerations, a growing body of research suggests that access to natural light and meaningful exterior views also influences human health, cognitive performance, workplace satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness.

This blog post summarizes research from public health, environmental psychology, workplace design, and building science examining the role that daylight and exterior views play in supporting the people who occupy public buildings every day. While no single design decision determines the success of a facility, the evidence increasingly suggests that access to natural light and views should be viewed not simply as architectural features, but as long-term investments in employee well-being and performance.

The Stewardship Responsibility of Public Facilities

Every public building is ultimately an investment in people. When communities build a city hall, police department, courthouse, fire station, or public works facility, discussions naturally focus on budgets, security, operational needs, and long-term maintenance. Yet another question deserves equal consideration: how will occupants experience the building every day for the next fifty years?

Decisions regarding windows, daylight, and views are often evaluated as matters of cost, privacy, or aesthetics. Research suggests they have broader implications for employee health, workplace satisfaction, recruitment, retention, and organizational effectiveness. Many of the people affected by today’s decisions are not yet in the room. They may not yet be employed by the organization or even live in the community. Yet they will spend thousands of hours within these buildings and live with the consequences of those decisions for decades.

Public leaders are therefore tasked with making decisions not only for today’s workforce, but also for future generations of public servants.

The Difference Between Daylight and Views

When discussing windows, it is important to distinguish between daylight and views. Daylight refers to the natural illumination that enters a building. Views refer to the visual connection occupants maintain with the outside environment, including weather conditions, seasonal changes, vegetation, activity, and the passage of time.

Both are important, but they are not the same thing. A building may provide daylight through clerestory windows or borrowed light while offering little meaningful connection to the outside world. Research increasingly suggests that views themselves provide measurable benefits beyond the presence of daylight alone.

For people who spend eight to ten hours each day indoors, that connection to the outside environment can have significant implications for health, well-being, and workplace performance.

Better Sleep, Better Health, Better Performance

One of the most compelling areas of research examines the relationship between daylight exposure and sleep quality. Studies have found that workers with greater access to daylight experience better sleep quality, longer sleep duration, and improved overall quality of life compared to workers in environments with limited daylight exposure. Researchers have also identified positive impacts on physical activity and general wellness.

These findings are significant because sleep affects virtually every aspect of workplace performance. Poor sleep has been linked to reduced cognitive function, increased fatigue, diminished decision-making ability, burnout, absenteeism, and lower productivity. Researchers have estimated that insufficient sleep costs employers billions of dollars annually through lost productivity and related health impacts.

While a building alone cannot solve sleep-related challenges, workplace environments that support healthy circadian rhythms can contribute meaningfully to employee wellness and long-term performance.

The Cognitive Benefits of Looking Outside

Research has also demonstrated that access to exterior views influences cognitive performance. Studies examining workplace environments have found that workers with access to daylight and views perform better on measures related to concentration, attention, and cognitive functioning. Additional research in environmental psychology suggests that natural views help reduce mental fatigue and restore attention capacity.

This concept, known as Attention Restoration Theory, proposes that the human brain periodically requires relief from sustained concentration and directed attention. Exposure to natural environments—even through a window—can help replenish cognitive resources and improve focus.

For public-sector employees whose work depends on judgment, concentration, and decision-making, these findings are particularly relevant. Police personnel, dispatchers, city administrators, planners, finance staff, permit technicians, and public works supervisors all perform work that requires sustained mental effort. The environments in which they work can either support or hinder that performance.

Supporting Recovery in High-Stress Professions

While much of the research surrounding daylight and exterior views focuses on traditional office environments, the implications may be even more significant for public safety personnel. Police officers, firefighters, dispatchers, and emergency responders routinely encounter elevated levels of stress, disrupted sleep patterns, emotional fatigue, and, in some cases, traumatic events. The facilities that support these professionals serve not only as places of work, but also as environments where recovery and restoration occur between calls, shifts, and critical incidents.

Research in environmental psychology suggests that access to natural environments can support both stress recovery and cognitive restoration. Stress Recovery Theory and Attention Restoration Theory propose that exposure to natural settings can reduce physiological stress responses, alleviate mental fatigue, and restore depleted attentional resources. Importantly, these benefits do not require direct access to nature. Research suggests that even visual connections to natural environments through windows can produce meaningful restorative effects.

As conversations surrounding first responder wellness continue to evolve, public safety facilities are increasingly being viewed as more than operational buildings. They are environments that can support readiness, recovery, and long-term health. Access to daylight, exterior views, and connections to nature should therefore be considered components of a broader strategy to support the people who dedicate their careers to serving their communities.

Workplace Quality Communicates Organizational Values

The benefits of daylight and views extend beyond health and productivity. Research has consistently linked access to windows and exterior views with increased workplace satisfaction and improved perceptions of the work environment. Employees routinely identify natural light as one of the most desirable workplace features.

This is increasingly important as public organizations compete to recruit and retain talented employees. While compensation and benefits remain important, workplace quality also shapes how employees perceive their organization. The physical environment communicates values. Access to daylight, views, and healthy workplace environments can reinforce a culture that values employee well-being, performance, and long-term success.

In Closing

Across multiple disciplines—including public health, sleep science, environmental psychology, workplace research, and building performance studies—the evidence consistently demonstrates that access to daylight and meaningful views contributes to improved health, better sleep, reduced stress, enhanced cognitive performance, and greater workplace satisfaction.

Every project requires balancing priorities such as budget, security, privacy, maintenance, and operational needs. The goal is not to maximize glazing at all costs, but to ensure that decisions regarding access to natural light and exterior views are made with a full understanding of their long-term impacts.

Ultimately, the most successful public facilities support the people who work within them as effectively as they support the services delivered to the community. The evidence suggests that access to daylight and meaningful connections to the outside environment remain important components of that responsibility.

Supporting Research

Health, Wellness, and Sleep

• Boubekri, M., Cheung, I., Reid, K., Wang, C., & Zee, P. (2014). Impact of Windows and Daylight Exposure on Overall Health and Sleep Quality of Office Workers. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
• Hafner, M., Stepanek, M., Taylor, J., Troxel, W., & van Stolk, C. (2016). Why Sleep Matters—The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis. RAND Corporation.
• International WELL Building Institute. (2021). Light Concept Research Digest.

Cognitive Performance and Workplace Effectiveness

• Boubekri, M., et al. (2020). The Impact of Optimized Daylight and Views on the Sleep Duration and Cognitive Performance of Office Workers. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
• Hedge, A. (2019). Daylight and the Workplace. Cornell University.
• Heschong Mahone Group. (2003). Windows and Offices: A Study of Office Worker Performance and the Indoor Environment.

Views, Nature, and Psychological Well-Being

• Stevenson, M., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory: A Systematic Review of the Attention Restoration Potential of Exposure to Natural Environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B.
• Kellert, S., Heerwagen, J., & Mador, M. (2016). We Need More Nature at Work: Benefits of Biophilic Design in the Workplace.
• Ulrich, R.S. (1984). View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery. Science, 224(4647), 420–421.

Employee Satisfaction, Recruitment, and Retention

• Lottrup, L., Grahn, P., & Stigsdotter, U.K. (2013). The Workplace Window View: A Determinant of Office Workers’ Work Ability and Job Satisfaction. Landscape Research, 40(1), 57–75.

Industry Consensus

• World Green Building Council. (2014). Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices: The Next Chapter for Green Building.