This chapter is a programme-level overview of the contribution of ACTS to new ways of flexible working, and highlights some of the technological issues that need to be addressed by the IST programme. The task of the ACTSLINE project is to summarise the results of ACTS in a form meaningful to communications professionals in various business sectors external to ACTS. For further information on su...

Different approaches have been introduced for the daylighting system to reduce energy consumption, but they were not populated due to complex, high cost, and insufficient designs. There has been a recent problem in achieving uniform distribution of sunlight at a destination deep inside the building. Therefore, we propose a system to achieve high illumination by illuminating the surface of the a...

Finding the proper trade-off between blocking direct sunlight, ensuring sufficient indoor daylighting and view out is a particularly delicate task especially in arid climates, due to harsh environmental conditions. As a tentative answer to this challenge, an adaptive shading and daylighting system (Shape Variable Mashrabiya – SVM) has been developed by the authors, described in an earlier paper...

The utilisation preference of glazed facades in the hot regions is accompanied by serious environmental and economic impacts. Attempts are continuing to fulfil an optimum balance between minimising heat gains and maximising daylighting benefits; in an economical approach. This study was conducted in Egypt, where a real case study was investigated to evaluate the thermo-visual performance of a b...

Designing spaces that are able to balance illumination, glare and solar gains over a whole year is a real challenge, yet a problem faced every day by building envelope designers. To assist them in this search, a full year, climate-based daylighting simulation method was developed, called Lightsolve, meant to be used early on in the design process when façade and space details have not yet been ...

CODYRUN is a multi-zone software integrating thermal building simulation, airflow, and pollutant transfer. A first question thus arose as to the integration of indoor lighting conditions into the simulation, leading to a new model calculating natural and artificial lighting. The results of this new daylighting module were then compared with results of other simulation codes and experimental cas...

Shading design to optimize daylighting is in many cases achieved through a designer’s sense based on prior knowledge and experience. However, computer-assisted parametric techniques can be utilized for daylighting design in an easy and much more accurate way. If such tools are utilized in the early stages of a project, this can be more effective for sustainable design. This study compares the c...