The Effects of Illuminance and Correlated Color Temperature on Visual Comfort of Occupants' Behavior

Abstract

The preferred illumination environment in accordance with the actions taken by the occupants of the rooms in residences differs significantly between different cultures and circumstances in and out of the country. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the visual performance of various illumination environments in residential spaces by allowing the participants of the experiments to select the kind of illumination environment they prefer as the occupants of the room. For this purpose, we prepared a mock-up residential space of <TEX>$6.2m{\times}4.5m{\times}2.5m$</TEX>, where the experiments for this study were conducted. Then, three illuminance settings (30lx, 100lx, and 150lx) and three color temperature settings (2700k, 4000k, and 6500k) were selected as the properties of the physical environment where the tests were to be conducted. The survey was conducted with 30 study subjects, with whom the level of visual comfort and the lighting adjustment evaluation by different activities were carried out. The level of visual comfort in lighting in a residential context turned to be more influenced by the color temperature and illuminance compared to other factors. Except for the test item, 'comfort,' all test items showed positive reactions when the illuminance was 150lx, which was rather light. In 'comfort,' the test subjects appeared to prefer warm color temperature of 2700k. As we allowed the occupants to adjust the lighting environment in accordance with the conditions of the subjects and the activities they performed, the subjects regarded 150lx - 4000k setting as comfortable, while they preferred 150lx-5400k configuration for working. In case of resting, the subject answered that the configuration of 30lx -2700k setting to be visually comfortable.