Our Green Streets Blog

Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO Photo: Sunflower Corp.

Those wishing to have the best natural light for interior spaces may want to take a look at Sunflower Corporation and its Sundolier^®, a lighting system designed to deliver high quality indirect daylight to large spaces.

The line of “daylighting” products developed at the Boulder, CO-based Sunflower Corporation are designed with this objective: to provide sustainable natural lighting that meets the high quality lighting demands of education, office, retail and industrial markets.

Natural daylight technology from Sundolier Photo: Sunflower Corp.

Sunflower’s inaugural product, the Sundolier^®, is a chandelier that distributes sunlight to interior rooms by washing ceilings and walls with daylight. The lighting device, which uses no electricity, creates the highest quality natural lighting experience available, says James Walsh, president and founder of the company.  From an engineering and architectural perspective, Sundolier installation requires minimal roof penetration and is easy to specify.

The company website contends that the effects from natural daylight are demonstrable in the following ways:

• Increase the speed of learning in educational environments
• Increase productivity and employee wellness in office and industrial environments
• Increase sales in retail environments

A large part of Walsh’s focus professionally has been in the education sector, where he has created environments that allow educators to focus on students by constructing facilities that optimize student learning. Sunflower donated its daylighting technology to Colorado’s Douglas County Library to help with the objective of bringing natural light to the library’s patrons. The Sundolier can be seen in this You Tube video (5:34).

The company website states: “Sundolier^® delivers sunlight so effectively that electric lighting can be turned off when the sun is out offering excellent opportunities to save electricity while reducing heat generation through cool indirect daylighting.”

According to Sunflower, this indirect natural lighting system is capable of meeting general lighting of up to 2,500 square feet of space with less than 0.4% roof penetration and leaves a minimum footprint. In addition, how pleasant not dealing with any kind of fluorescent lighting.