The Role of Daylight within the Vault of Shahrak-e-Gharb Jame Mosque in Tehran

Light plays an important role in the valuation of architectural elements, and it is a factor in designing spaces. Elements have no visual identity without light. This paper is intended to analyze the lighting in the vault of Shahrak-e-Gharb Jame Mosque with an emphasis on the role of daylight in order to find out how the designer has viewed the use of daylight in designing this mosque. The main ques‌tion of this research is, “what is the role of natural daylight within the vault of Shahrak-e-Gharb Jame Mosque?”. For this purpose, the light intensity was measured in the Shabes‌tan and the vault of the mosque as an architectural monument using photometric ins‌truments. Then, the trajectory of natural light was simulated using DIALux during a whole year, and the results were analyzed indicating that the role of natural light as an identity element in exhibiting the luminance of the mihrab has been neglected, and the light intensity seems uniform and boring within the vault.