Designing energy-efficient and visually-thermally comfortable shading systems for office buildings in a cooling-dominant climate

Abstract

Windows and their control elements, including shading systems, are among the most critical building components affecting both energy consumption and occupant comfort. With the increasing demand for full-glazed facades, designers and researchers are actively devising advanced control strategies to address the challenges posed by excessive sunlight penetration and heat transfer. These strategies aim to harmonize the benefits of natural light with the need for comfortable indoor environments and energy consumption reduction. This study investigates the impact of external shading configurations for an office room in Tehran, categorized as group B in the Köppen climate classification, to reduce total building energy consumption and improve occupant thermal and visual comforts. The shading parameters include shading angle, shading depth, and the number of shading slats. More specifically, this study analyzes and compares two design configurations for the considered office room. The first configuration consists of a single southern window with horizontal shading, whereas the second configuration consists of two windows on the south and west, one being horizontal shading on the southern side and the other being vertical shading on the western side. There are a total of 1330 models investigated from which 20 models are selected as the most suitable solutions. Finally, this paper examines the effect of each design parameter on the overall performance of each configuration in terms of energy efficiency and visual-thermal comfort.