Analysis of daylighting characteristics and optimization of space design dimensions in typical building corridors

Abstract

Incorporating sufficient daylight is an effective and green design strategy to improve visual comfort, energy-efficiency and sustainable building developments. However, there are more artificial lighting consumption, more cooling load and less visual comfort in internal corridors of most buildings due to the shortage of daylight. In this paper, three methods comprising questionnaire survey, numerical simulation and field measurement were integrated to study the daylighting characteristics and the critical length of the corridor with an end window or an open room in daylighting design. It began with a questionnaire survey to understand the subjective perception of the building’s users on the lighting status, daylighting importance and daylighting preference in the internal corridor. Then the daylighting performance of the building corridors with the end window and the open room was simulated by Ecotect, and the analysis of the simulation data was performed through SPSS. Two models were developed for predicting the daylighting critical length of the corridors. Furthermore, a comparison of the field measurement data and the predicted results was carried out to validate the models. The results indicated that the developed models have the better accuracy and can be referred to as a guide for the initial daylighting design of buildings.