Daylight - South-facing windows?

In the northern hemisphere, buildings normally has south-facing windows to face sun and obtain maximum solar gain during the winter. It really depend on your daylight control and purpose. Some of buildings are not primarily consider the daylighting, for example hotels, night clubs, hospitals. Some of buildings have specific requirements for illumination and may use artificial light to instead control daylight source, for example museums, art gallery.
Museum Ludwig, Köln

Museum Ludwig uses of north-facing monitors and blinds provides daylight control appropriate for the illumination of art objects to minimise potential damage to exhibits.

Different purpose will change architecture design, the south-facing orientation is not the only way to obtain solar gain. I think it's really important to understand your context and site restriction before you start designing.


source:
http://www.museum-ludwig.de/en/museum/ueber-das-museum/architektur.html
Baker and Steemers, Daylight design of buildings, 2002