Due to over reliance on the artificial lighting and air-conditioning, energy consumption has been substantially increased in modern housing developments. Thus, meaningful studies on the environmental design strategies embedded in the scholar gardens of China may shed new light on the passive low energy design solutions for building designers. A special type of light well, ‘crab-eye’ light well is commonly found in the pavilions of Suzhou scholar gardens. By conducting field work and computational analysis, this study aims to investigate the real environmental performance of crab-eye light-well from visual and thermal comfort perspective. For qualitative analysis, sketches, photographs and on-site subjective observation were used to assist the understanding of the environmental performance of the crab-eye light well. Additionally, on-site monitoring and computer simulation had been undertaken to further demonstrate how this type of light well enhanced thermal and visual comfort. This study is concluded by providing a succinct summary on the construction and performative benefits of the crab-eye light well and the key findings present the application potential of this type of light well in contemporary housing design.