Orientation of classrooms is an important challenge in architectural design of a school. However, there is a lack of appropriate knowledge about influence of orientation on students’ perception of daylighting in classrooms. This paper presents a questionnaire survey that was conducted to compare students’ perception and satisfaction with daylighting in classrooms of a high school in...

We present a study of a tangible user interface for design and simulation applied to architectural daylighting analysis. This tool provides an intuitive way for architects and future occupants of a building to quickly construct physical models and interactively view in them a projected simulation of resulting daylighting. A user study was conducted of both architecture students and non-architec...

This study investigates the daylighting and thermal performance of open-plan office buildings with two scenarios of daylight louvers – fixed and motorized ones. Both types are for facade window applications. They redirect transmitted daylight to eliminate glare on occupants and increase daylight levels deeper in the interior space, but have significantly different daylight transmitting characte...

Simulation tools can provide valuable information for daylighting system design while optimization methods can determine feasible solutions from a number of uncertain design parameters. However, optimization methods allow for limited interactivity and only consider several performance criteria. Therefore, to utilize experts’ domain knowledge, this research presents a rule-based expert system ba...

Purpose: This article provides an overview of the daylighting system using existing and advanced submicron technology for buildings. The approaches of movable and fixed sunlight guiding system for saving the energy of artificial lighting will be reviewed. The major part is devoted to the sunlight guide panel / film based on a formed prismatic microstructure on transparent substrate by UV-imprin...

The design of a solar protection system that can minimize solar gains while maximizing daylight and view to the outside is particularly challenging in arid climates, such as in the Middle-East, where sand, wind and corrosion impose specific constraints. We propose a system that provides a trade-off for three requirements: (i) maximize diffuse sunlight and view to the outside, (ii) efficiently b...

Daylighting as a research topic situates itself at the interface between psycho-physiological and environmental factors, bringing together questions relevant to architectural design and building engineering, but also to human physiology and behaviour. While daylighting has a strong impact on human health and well-being, and an undeniable association with (subjective) emotional delight and perce...

Direct solar irradiance may cause thermal discomfort, even in winter when the ambient temperature is low and especially for high-altitude locations with a high intensity of solar radiation. Thus winter solar shading might be required and, if used, must achieve a balance between the prevention of the transmittance of solar irradiance, the utilization of passive solar heat and the supply of adequ...

This paper presents a study on the use of optical fiber and a solar concentrator for a building daylighting system. Daylighting is essential for improving indoor environments and reducing electric lighting power consumption in office buildings. Traditionally, optical fiber daylighting systems were implemented only on a small scale. More complicated technologies are required for more amounts of ...

In this paper, we present a design and optical simulation of a daylighting system using a novel design of linear Fresnel lens, which is constructed based on the conservation of optical path length and edge ray theorem. The linear Fresnel lens can achieve a high uniformity by using a new idea of design in which each groove of the lens distributes sunlight uniformly over the receiver so that the ...