A case study addressing the benefits of daylighting and electric lighting integration in the retail sector

This article describes field monitoring and supplementary simulations of an existing daylighting and electric lighting integrated design for a furniture store. First in its type, the store includes several areas of the showroom provided with abundant daylighting. For the monitoring, the areas of the living rooms and the home decoration exhibitions were selected. They include wide glazed areas, daylight harvesting systems, and tunable lighting. The monitoring procedure assesses four aspects: energy use, objective or measurable lighting conditions, circadian potential, and subjective evaluation of lighting. The results suggest that the integration project was successful in terms of energy saving, as well as customer and staff appreciation. The customers were more attentive to daylighting; they also report a better shopping experience compared to equivalent shops. Staff showed satisfaction with the electric lighting solutions, for example with LED panels with automatic tuning of correlated color temperature. For future projects, the article argues that daylighting in furniture shops may be an asset. In addition, for the methodological part, the monitoring suggests that objective and subjective evaluations should be always combined for a full understanding of the integrated project