To design building façades that provide a balance between visual comfort and illuminance exposure
Technology & Design
Description
Maximizing daylight levels inside buildings improves health and psychological wellbeing of occupants in addition to saving energy when properly used. Visual comfort is also an integral part of the daylighting design question. Typically, visual comfort can be achieved by providing adequate but only moderate levels of illumination in order to avoid excessive glare and harsh luminance contrasts from the daylight sources. Accordingly, this project outlines a unique mathematical formulation of the glare index to determine façade sizing based on two criteria: 1) Discomfort glare and 2) The non-visual stimulation of occupants for health and psychological wellbeing. This project proposes the glare criterion as additional to existing national façade sizing procedures based on critical illuminance levels (or minimum daylight factor on the working plane corresponding to the visual tasks) and exterior conditions (that occur with absence of sunlight and a CIE Overcast Sky standard).
