It is often asserted that the sun and traditional dwellings were in a perfect harmony, whereas the built environment produced in the last fifty years has in fact marginalized most of the climatic factors. Increasingly, an effort is being made to recover this lost relationship in the form of energy conscious, passive solar and high environmental quality designs. One of the main issues is the use of sunlight and daylight to light up building interiors. Natural light has obvious health benefits and is simultaneously helpful for energy efficiency. Several investigations have demonstrated that sunlight and daylight are well appreciated by building occupants; moreover, these investigations have proved that lighting standards are insufficient, and that there are important non-physical factors involves (e.g. psychological and cultural factors). These non-physical factors vary depending on their climatic and cultural contexts, on the season of the year and time of day, and on the specific people and tasks invovled. It is therefore important to avoid excessive generalisations. This study focuses on the context of a hot, arid region with a sunny sky. In such environments, sunlight penetration is combined with thermal discomfort and glare problems; as a result, the attitudes of building occupants are different from other environmental contexts in which the presence of sunlight is more desirable. This paper aims to study the impact of sunlight and daylight on the affective relationship between a home and its occupants, by analysis of a building's frequency of occupancy. In this work, the home is considered as the behavioural setting and the vernacular dwellings of the southeastern region of Algeria present the focus of this research. The preliminary outcomes presented in this paper are part of broader research investigating people's reactions and attitudes towards various daylighting and sunlighting strategies, in different working and living spaces within an Islamic culture
