With the steady development of global illumination algorithms over the past four decades, lighting design software is no longer the domain of a specialist. Easy to use interface, built-in flexibility, reliable calculation models, and compelling visuals has made today's lighting design software useful to architects and interior designers. However, despite these advantages, the use of lighting design software is not widely included in the undergraduate architecture and interior design education. This paper summarizes the results of an online survey of a sample of accredited architecture and interior design schools in the United States conducted to (a) determine the extent of use of lighting design software in teaching and learning lighting at the undergraduate level and (b) to assess design educators' attitude toward their usefulness in design education. This paper discusses directions for the future based on the survey results.

The successful use of daylight in a building requires that the associated forms and devices be conceived as an integral part of the architectural design.The popular methods of simulation for daylighting design: manual methods, physical scale model and computer graphics based rendering do not provide a robust model for daylighting decision-making during the design process due to their individual limitations.The recent advances in computer-aided design and rendering compel another look at visually simulating daylight.This paper discusses a project undertaken to test a computer-aided daylight simulation program's accuracy and ability to allow quick iterative daylight explorations, essential to any design decision-making process. Real buildings with their existing complexities are selected as case studies.The outcomes are discussed and recommendations for future daylight simulation software programs to be suitable in the design process are suggested.

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The constant advances in the use of computers to simulate light over the past few decades, has led computer-aided rendering to become increasingly photorealistic. However, the rendering is still processor-intensive and time-consuming, difficult to generate in real time. Design students need to be well versed in the depiction of the effects of light in an environment, crucial to spatial visualization. With increasing computing power, advanced algorithms and increased realism, the central pedagogical issue in their use is not what computers can do for us today, but what and how we can make them do what we do better. We have to be careful in not getting seduced by the advancing technology but use it innovatively to build students into better designers. This paper discusses a project demonstrating the apparent potential of computers for spatial visualization and design exploration of light and space, in their present stage. The project shows a departure from the traditional methods of using computers or of teaching lighting in a design school. Computers are used by students to especially create flashy imagery. On the other hand, lighting is explained in clinical terms without exploration of its experiential qualities. This exercise helped the students to develop a better understanding of the physics of light from the method most familiar and expected of students -visual. The project deems it more important to have a quick means to produce an overview of the implication of the design choices than to provide precise information regarding a hypothetical final solution. Hence, after creating the lighting in the space based on the desired experiential qualities, the illumination can be conveyed to a lighting expert for detailed quantitative computations. The project results are shown and outcomes discussed.