Refshale Craft School

North light is the entire commission. A sawtooth roof brings even, shadowless daylight down onto the bench line all day, without the swing in colour temperature that would make a varnish look right at eleven and wrong at four. The south face, where an ordinary shed would put its windows, is almost solid: insulated to passive standard, racked with timber storage, and quiet.

The model in the photograph is the fourth. The first three got the roof pitch wrong — we were testing the clerestory against a heliodon at 55.7° north and kept over-lighting the far bench. This far north the winter sun never climbs above about 11°, which is unforgiving of a roof drawn by eye. Cutting basswood is faster than rebuilding the daylight model, and you can hold it up to a real window, which is what we did.

The hall at the north-east corner is open to the public on Saturdays, deliberately underlit compared to the workshop. Work that has been judged under perfect light should be seen under ordinary light, in something closer to the room it will end up in. The whole building sits on a screw-pile foundation and is drawn to be taken apart: this is a leasehold on reclaimed land, and in sixty years it may have to move.