SKY REFLECTOR-NET (2014) © JAMES CARPENTER DESIGN ASSOCIATES, GRIMSHAW ARCHITECTS, AND ARUP, FULTON CENTER. COMMISSIONED BY MTA ARTS FOR TRANSIT & URBAN DESIGN. PATRICK CASHIN

When the new fulton center transit hub opened in Lower Manhattan in late June, it connected nine subway lines and four stations. (Eventually it'll also link to New Jersey's PATH system.) And thanks to some brilliant design work, the $1.4 billion project also connected parts of the deep, dark system to natural daylight for the first time.

The light enters through a 53-foot skylight. Then it encounters something called the Sky Reflector-Net, a gigantic meshlike structure sheathed in hundreds of aluminum reflectors that bounce the light into the transit center and even down to the mezzanine level, four stories underground. Artist James Carpenter, whose design firm collaborated on the project, says it's a little like outdoor Greek theater or art-deco-era theaters with the sky painted on the ceiling: “It's a way of recapturing that idea using materials technology and optics.”

New York isn't the only city getting its shine on; subterranean structures worldwide, from Denver's Union Station to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, are deploying architectural flair to inject a glorious dose of vitamin D into our fluorescent-lit existence. “Daylight is very much about humanizing an environment,” says Vincent Chang, a partner at Grimshaw Architects, which also worked on the Reflector-Net. The New York subway can certainly use the help.