Sandeman House is located in the historic Old Town of Edinburgh, which retains much of the Mediaeval street layout and the pattern of narrow canyon-like closes leading into hidden courtyards and gardens. Naturally daylight and direct sunlight are at something of a premium in a built environment such as this.

The front elevation of Sandeman House faces south and therefore does receive direct sun in the summer. The garden, however, is shadowed much of the time, owing to the height of the Netherbow Arts Centre building on its south side. The question we had to address was whether any changes to the Netherbow would make this situation worse.

We built a 3D digital model of the garden and the buildings immediately surrounding it. By calculating the angle of the sun at different times of day year, we were able to cast correctly positioned shadows on the garden. The results are shown below.