This is something different. Not the geometry, nor texture are in play here. It is only when the object is in front of the other object, which is fairly well brighten with a glow map.
Back to the loft scene. There is no scene actually. I only left glowing sky, one key light, one tree and a primitive cube with bump and texture maps stripped. No IBL, no GI.
Final render with normal view-port, high quality shadow, super-sampling is ON x3:
And what is that dotted line on the left side of the cube? You guessed it!
A soft shadow from the tree on the right.
Take the tree out, disable sky glow and the cube is back to normal: