What I imagine is a "light intake" on a roof, from which the light is concentrated into a straight long NARROW tube that takes it to an underground flat where the light is dispersed into a fake window.
Is such design not possible mathematically or just very expensive?
Maybe it could use Fresnel lenses to save on cost and weight. That way we would not get a clear picture of the outside world but at least lot of natural daylight.
I think they're uncommon because electric lighting is fairly cheap to run, and there are practical issues with running a big light tube through the house.
There's even a Swedish company doing it with fiber optics: https://www.parans.com/
Their website claims they can get sunlight 30 floors down.
When the building was being designed a couple of years ago, they put a light tunnel in place running down the vertical length of one side of the building. This took light from the penthouse's roof and channeled it down to the ground floor.
By doing this, the architects could turn a 2-bedroom apartment into a 3-bedroom one. By law (at least in the UK), you cannot market a room as a bedroom unless it has natural light coming in. As my neighbour's apartment was surrounded on two sides by adjoining walls, this meant a room mid-way through the length of the building (and otherwise devoid of natural light) could be considered a bedroom, and marketed as such.
> By doing this, the architects could turn a 2-bedroom apartment into a 3-bedroom one. By law (at least in the UK), you cannot market a room as a bedroom unless it has natural light coming in.
This doesn't sound right to me, so I checked and the best I can come up with is this, from the building regulations:
https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects...
There is reference to fire escape/egress and to ventilation but nothing about natural light. I don't think there is any requirement to have natural light for a room to be defined as a bedroom.
The subject of what a bedroom actually is appears to be somewhat murky. The Building Regulations use terms like "habitable space" for most rooms within a house which I assume allows for the fact that one persons front room/lounge/living room might be another persons ground floor bedroom/granny annex/lodger's bedsit. There are some specific cases such as kitchens and bathrooms that don't tend to be as ambiguous, but I don't think there is a regulation that backs up your statement "By law (at least in the UK), you cannot market a room as a bedroom unless it has natural light coming in."
http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/glossary/what-is-a-bedroom/
I don't have the source of the requirement, just that it was specified in the contract, and we got an explanation as to why the third room was not deemed fit for habitation.
A friend of a friend drowned because they were asleep in a "bedroom" which was a room in a lower level without a window.
https://www.sterlingbuild.co.uk/info/5-things-you-need-to-kn...
https://www.minnpost.com/stroll/2015/09/seven-stories-down-u...
Not a very good photo of what it looked like:
http://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/6e/29/0553c64f5a894a9391...