Computational and experimental evaluation of view out according to European Standard EN17037

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of view out based on EN17037:2018 Daylight in Buildings within an educational building. The primary motivation to conduct the research was an introduction of a view out appraisal criteria by the mentioned standard. The study gives insights into the following: (i) the use of computational evaluation of an outside view according to the EN17037 criteria (ii) the use of the direct simultaneous questionnaire to assess the view out (iii) a description of the relationships between the normative criteria and users' subjective assessments of view out, and (iv) the link between the quantitative and qualitative parameters of the evaluation of view out. The study was conducted using a three step approach: S1 – a computational evaluation of the outside view according to the standard's recommendations: distance to the nearest obstacle, number of visible layers and angle of the view; S2 – a view out evaluation based on a direct questionnaire in the selected indoor spaces under various daylight conditions; S3 – analysis and comparison of the results. The data was collected in 2019 and 2020 with 169 evaluations from volunteering architecture students. The key findings are: (i) the outcome of the subjective participants' evaluation of the view out differs from the results generated through computational simulations based on the EN17037 ratings (ii) similar results were recorded in reference to the estimation of the layers of the view, and (iii) the responders rated the view out one rank lower than the computational evaluation suggests.