Enhancing Daylight Availability in Historical Buildings through Tubular Daylight Guidance Systems: A Simulation-Based Study

Abstract

This simulation-based study investigates the potential of tubular daylight guidance systems (TDGS) to enhance daylight availability in historical buildings. Historical buildings often face challenges in providing sufficient daylight to non-lit areas without altering the building’s facade. TDGS offer a passive, building-integrated solution that redirects daylight to target areas while preserving the building’s originality. The study focuses on a historic passage building without ground floor openings and aims to improve visual comfort and daylight availability. Climate Studio software is used to assess the current daylighting conditions and to simulate various scenarios for TDGS implementation. The study considers four TDGS alternatives with different diameters, evaluating their impact on useful daylight illuminance (UDI) and spatial daylight autonomy (sDA). The findings reveal significant increases in UDI and sDA, ranging from 68.7 % to 403.7 %, and from 79.9 % to 1813.6 %, respectively, depending on the tube diameter. These results underscore the importance of daylight tube diameter in increasing the availability and distribution of useful daylight. The study emphasizes the potential of TDGS to optimize daylighting experiences in historical buildings with limited daylight