The classic Indian commercial floor plate is long and narrow, with windows on the long sides. The corners are bright; the centre, by mid-morning, is gloomy. Most fit-outs hide the problem under uniform LED light. The better ones plan around it.
Three strategies that actually work
- Pull cabins to the short ends. The two darkest zones become the meeting rooms; daylight desks line the perimeter.
- Borrowed light through internal partitions. Glass walls on cabins and meeting rooms let perimeter light cross the floor. Frosted, fluted or partial glazing keeps privacy without killing the light gradient.
- Light-coloured ceiling and upper-wall finishes. Surface reflectance does as much work as the window. A 90% LRV ceiling extends usable daylight 4–6 metres deeper into the plate than a 70% LRV ceiling.
Daylight does not mean glare
A common over-correction: too many windows, no shading, screens unreadable from 11 to 3. Internal blinds with manual or automated control, ideally tuned to the building orientation, are the cheap mitigation. Better is to plan workstations 0.6–1.0 m off the glass with a softer light shelf above.
A simple metric
For most offices, aim for 80–90% of seated positions within 10 m of a window. We measured 92% on the Infoservices fit-out (Hyderabad, 30,000 sq ft) by combining a central daylight corridor with cabins pulled to the short ends. The plate did not change; the plan did.
When daylight is not the priority
Some work needs darkness — AV studios, secure rooms, lab-adjacent zones with photosensitive instrumentation. Plan those at the deep centre of the plate first; daylight planning is what is left.