Daylight Enhancement Strategies for Historic Buildings: A Critical Review of Interventions, Their Constraints, and Applicability

Abstract

With the growing urgency to reduce carbon emissions in the built environment, enhancing daylight availability in historic buildings has become a critical and challenging task due to the required balance between environmental sustainability objectives and cultural heritage conservation principles. This paper presents a systematic and critical review of 54 studies focusing on daylight enhancement strategies in historic buildings, published between 2000 and 2025. Following the PRISMA scoping review method, this review investigates intervention challenges according to three primary constraints: regulatory and conservation limitations, material and structural constraints, and climate-responsive requirements. By mapping currently employed daylighting techniques in historic buildings and critically assessing their underlying assumptions, this study aims to bridge the gap between performancedriven daylighting research and cultural heritage preservation principles. The findings are intended to promote multidisciplinary discourse and serve as a basis for creating contextually acceptable, ethically responsible, and technically feasible daylighting recommendations for historic buildings.