Abstract

Daylight is vital to building occupants as it impacts health and productivity of humans in the indoor environment. No doubt that green building rating systems contribute to the awareness of the significance of daylight in buildings, they enhances the indoor environmental quality by awarding credits to daylight harvesting in buildings. LEED as one of the predominant green building rating systems sets specific daylight criterion, and offers more than one option for project teams to assess and comply with the set criterion; either using manual calculations, using computer simulation (during design), or by daylight measurement (by substantial construction). This article presents a case study of a LEED Gold building in Cairo, Egypt. Within this specific case, three daylight assessment approaches were implemented; Daylight simulation (on design drawings), daylight measurement (after substantial construction), and Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) (after 9 months of building occupancy). This paper contrasted the results of the assessment methods, this contrast in daylight assessment methods revealed the significance as well as drawbacks of each assessment method compared to the other, and distilled valuable insights about the reliability of each of the available assessment methods.

Highlights

  • One of the LEED V3 requirements indicates that, at least 75% of all regularly occupied spaces should receive daylight luminance between 10 and 500 foot-candles (107 and 5380 Lux), in order to achieve 1 LEED credit; projects should opt for daylight simulation or measurement to verify the daylight credit requirements, in both cases criteria is the same, if project‟s team opts for daylight measurement; projects may achieve 2 points if they demonstrate more than 90% of regularly occupied space areas to be compliant [6]

  • The objective of this paper is to evaluate two dominant daylight evaluation methods; simulation and measurements, and to compare both with the actual building user‟s perception in a LEED awarded building

  • The research follows mixed method approach; simulation, field measurements, and survey of occupant‟s feedback on the quality of daylight in their office spaces

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Summary

Introduction

Humans spend more than 90% of their time indoors [1]; the quality of the indoor environment is crucial to be considered for their health, wellbeing, and productivity. One of the most significance indoor environmental quality aspects is daylight. Daylight is an important factor which impacts building occupants‟ health and well-being. Daylight has a clear leverage on our body clock and metabolism, and it can affect our circadian cycle [2]. The availability of daylight can keep the occupants healthy and effective in their works. As well as for buildings, daylight is a primary source of lighting and a special element in enhancing architecture [3]

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