Designing for Daylighting

Daylighting at the National Audubon SocietyNatural daylighting in the New York City headquarters of the National Audubon Society provides an attractive, brightly lit interior. National Audubon Society In addition to making your space more pleasant visually, daylighting reduces the need for electric lighting. As long you avoid excessive solar heat gain, reduced electric lighting also reduces cooling loads. Studies suggest that occupant health, student test scores, office productivity, and retail sales all benefit from daylighting.

Designing for daylighting calls for an integrated approach beginning in early planning phases and factoring in issues including building geometry and orientation, passive solar gain and loss, glazing specifications, reflectivity of interior finishes, lighting power, and lighting controls. Daylight modeling or daylight measuring are excellent tools for optimizing daylighting in a space, and balancing it with other design issues.

Design for daylighting based on the goals and needs of the project. Daylighting is typically a greater focus in regularly occupied spaces...

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