Seasonal surpluses and deficits of natural light in Estonia can turn interiors into places of uneasy gloom, especially in winter. This is not simply a matter of mood: it reveals how inadequately we study and apply the physics of daylight—its sources, intakes, conduits and the geometry of volumes—within architectural conception and planning.

Agriculture has always followed the sun and the seasons, yet our buildings often ignore them. Facades are too often composed symmetrically north to south, as if energetic interactions were identical in a four-season latitude where interior conditions change radically across the year. I frequently encounter large, randomly placed windows that act as thermal bridges in winter and produce intolerable solar gains on hot summer days. The recent trend towards modular roof windows is welcome, but insufficient. Daylight analysis must be embedded at the very beginning of design and then carried through to culture and maintenance.

A useful metaphor lies in termite mounds: they are oriented to the cardinal axes, and the colony migrates within the structure to zones with more comfortable temperature and air quality. The lesson is not about height but energetic functioning—orientation, staging, and controlled flows of air and light. Estonian buildings could likewise be conceived as responsive organisms, seasonally zoning space and modulating aperture, mass and ventilation to sustain comfort with minimal energy.

Ventilation, meanwhile, is typically handled by standardised, bolt-on systems rather than being integrated with form and section to create healthier interiors. At the Rohevik green-growth forum, Tartu’s vice-mayor, Raimond Tamm, emphasised the need for interiors that rely more on natural energies; that objective should guide our practice. If I were to propose a seminar theme for Estonian architecture, it would centre on the health and hygiene of buildings and their upkeep. In that spirit, we should attend closely to the most fragile vertical zones—attics and basements—where humidity, air tightness, insulation continuity and maintenance practices make or break long-term performance.

What Estonia needs is not merely more glass, but better-oriented, better-shaded, better-ventilated, and better-maintained architecture—daylighted by design, not by chance.