Lighting and Daylighting Design

Getting smart about lighting is an important step to designing energy

efficient buildings. Learn how to use daylighting, efficient lights, and good
controls to both reduce energy demands and make people happier and
more productive.
The sun is predictable and daylight can be a very reliable source of light.
Sunlight, views, and daylight are different though, and need to be
carefully managed.
Daylighting, or using sunlight to illuminate your building, is an effective
way to both decrease your buildings energy use and make the interior
environment more comfortable for people.
In commercial buildings, electric lighting accounts for 35 - 50% of total
electrical energy consumption. Strategic use of daylight can reduce this
energy demand. Daylight also improves people's comfort and
productivity.
Even when you cant use daylighting, good lighting design can reduce
energy use significantly. Both are important in Net Zero Energy Buildings.
[Daylighting]
Using daylight in your building is a key strategy for passive design. Letting
sun into your building impacts visual comfort, as well as thermal comfort.
Understanding how light from the sun enters a building as well as how to
use the light once it is in a building are important considerations for
successful daylighting.
Like most things, daylighting has advantages and disadvantages. But by
becoming skilled at understanding the technical components of
daylighting, you can make sure to maximize the advantages and minimize
disadvantages.
Sunlight vs. Daylight:
Because the sun is predictable, daylight can be a reliable light source.
Sunlight is considered as the light that enters a space directly from the
sun. This type of light is generally not good for lighting an interior space.
Direct sunlight can produce glare and excessive heat gain.
Daylight or skylight describes the desirable natural light in a space.
Daylight results in a perceived even distribution of light that avoids the
glare and ill effects of direct sunlight. You can use BIM software tools to
help improve your daylighting strategies (see Daylighting Analysis).
Although natural light comes from the sun, you dont want direct sun for
daylighting design.

Daylight is diffuse natural light from the sky. For daylighting design,
you DO want daylight.
Sunlight is direct light from the sun itself. For daylighting design, you
DONT want sunlight. It creates light that is too intense and can
bring unwanted heat.

Sky Conditions:
The availability of daylight is dictated by the conditions of the sky at a
given point in time; which is mostly controlled by the density of cloud
cover. The International Commission On Illumination (CIE) classifies fifteen
different types of sky conditions that can be associated with noticeably
different luminance distributions.
When conducting daylighting analysis it is important to design for a range
of conditions. This means making sure that you analyze a range of sky
conditions, not just a bright and clear sky. It's unlikely that these
conditions well be true for every hour of every day. Good analysis will
consider bright and clear sky as well as an overcast sky.
[Massing & Orientation for Daylighting]
Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for visual
comfort, or daylighting. Many of the strategies are similar to those for
passive heating, but also different factors, such as glare, to consider.
Massing for Visual Comfort:
It can be very difficult to get consistent daylight and control glare from
east and west windows. However, the side of the building facing the sun's
path (the equator-facing side) can generally be easily shaded with
overhangs, light shelves, or louvers, and the side of the building facing
away from the sun's path gets little or no glare.
Therefore, generally buildings that are longer on their east-west axis are
better for daylighting and visual comfort.
By using skylights, single-storey buildings can easily achieve good
daylighting throughout, no matter how wide they are. However, singlestorey buildings are often not the best use of land. For good daylighting,
larger and taller buildings should have thinner profiles to maximize
daylighting potential from side windows. This also provides more
opportunity for views.
Large buildings can get daylight into more spaces by having central
courtyards or atria, or having other cutouts in the building form.
Increasing the height of each storey to allow for higher windows also helps
pull daylight further into the building.

Orientation for Visual Comfort:

As with massing for visual comfort, buildings should usually be oriented
east-west rather than north-south. This orientation lets you consistently
harness daylight and control glare along the long faces of the building. It
also lets you minimize glare from the rising or setting sun.
If the building has cutouts to maximize daylighting, the orientations of
these cutouts should also be chosen to maximize north and south walls.
With good building massing, such cutouts can also act as their own
shading to prevent glare.

[Redirecting Light]
Redirecting light is the use of building elements to bounce sunlight into
more desirable locations in the building. Light shelves and baffles are two
strategies that can distribute light more evenly.
Light Shelves:
To evenly distribute light, it is often desirable to bounce sunlight off of
surfaces. Direct sunlight on work surfaces often causes glare. Light
shelves are devices that both shade view windows from glare and bounce
light upward to improve light penetration and distribution.
A light shelf is generally a horizontal element positioned above eye level
that divides a window into a view area on the bottom and a daylighting
area on the top. It can be external, internal, or combined and can either
be integral to the building, or mounted upon the building.
Light shelves are most effective on walls facing the sun's path; on polefacing walls they simply act as shades. Light shelves on east and west
orientations may not bounce light that much further into the spaces, but
are an effective means of reducing direct heat gain and glare.
Exterior light shelves reduce daylight near the window but improves the
light uniformity. The recommended depth of an external light shelf is
roughly equal to its height above the work plane.

To reduce cooling loads and solar gain, an exterior light shelf is the best
compromise between requirements for shading and distribution of
daylight. Because they are only shades, they do not change the ratio of
incoming light to heat, but better distribution of light can reduce the
amount needed in a space, which helps with cooling.
Light shelves may be constructed of many materials, such as wood, metal
panels, glass, plastic, fabric, or acoustic ceiling materials. Considerations
that affect the choice of material include structural strength, ease of
maintenance, cost, and aesthetics.
Light shelves and vertical fins do not need to be opaque; when they are
transparent but diffusive, they can help evenly distribute light without
reducing the total amount of light significantly.
Sizing Light Shelves:
The orientation, height, position (internal, external, or both), and depth of
the light shelf are critical. A rule of thumb is that the depth of the internal
light shelf be approximately equal to the height of the clerestory window
head above the shelf. The optimal width and placement of light shelves
depends on the site's location and climate.
Baffles:
When light shelves are oriented vertically, they are known as baffles.
They are used with skylights or roof monitors to better distribute daylight
and avoid glare. Designing the optimal height and placement of baffles is
done the same way as designing light shelves.

(http://sustainabilityworkshop.autodesk.com/buildings/lighting-anddaylighting-design)