Sensory Effect of Daylight on Contemplative Perception of Space

The needs for reaching a contemplative spirituality during prayer have never been easy to meet. Infinite number of designs of mosque and church has been developed, but seemingly the result is still dissatisfied. We experimented the role of daylight to meet that needs and used 24 university students to evaluate the responses. The ANOVA statistic results show that the samples perceive the spatial effect from the maximum and a lesser amount of skylight above the mihrab or altar significantly differently from that of the lesser wall openings. This study proves the positive effect of daylight in creating a contemplative perception of space.