A Parametrical Study for the Optimization of Daylighting in Advanced Façades

The paper presents a study that will focus on daylighting and visual comfort for advanced façades, that deal with the dynamic behaviour of natural light. At the same time, it will aim at an integrated approach including thermal and acoustic comfort and the way they interact with each other. Critical aspects with regards to thermal and acoustic comfort are generally optimized in advanced façades, it is therefore necessary to implement the daylight comfort as well. For the advanced façades we consider triple and double glass façades (ventilated or not). This integrated approach is all the more important because a good balance between daylight, visual, thermal and acoustic comfort is essential to the general performance of a building as such (energy performance,…) and to the users of the building (well-being). This means that the study will have to use both ‘objective’ or ‘easy to quantify’ parameters and more ‘subjective’ or ‘less easy to quantify’ parameters. The study will concentrate on the working environment, in particular in office spaces which still offer a great opportunity for energy savings. Moreover, as people spend an important share of their lifetime indoors, a healthy indoor environment where occupants should benefit of an optimized comfort, can keep working cost low by increasing physiological and psychological well-being (increased human performance). The gathered results will finally be used to create a decision tool that acknowledges a holistic approach to evaluate and compare requirements for a healthy indoor environment. This tool has to allow designers to make decisions on advanced building skins (and traditional skins) in the preliminary design stage in order to qualify and optimize new and existing façades with regards to (human) comfort.Published in Conference Proceedings of the Conference on Advanced Building Skins 2015 by Economic Forum.status: publishe