A Study of Daylighting Performance in Apartment Buildings with Reference to the Gaza Strip

Daylighting in residential buildings is an essential design parameter considering its impact on the visual comfort of users and energy efficiency of buildings. This is more challenging in apartment buildings, where collective residential configurations and deep plans are usually used. This is true in the case of the Gaza Strip, which makes daylighting quality in residential buildings a questionable issue. Thus, this study aims to examine daylighting performance in the Gaza Strip apartment buildings, and to propose some design recommendations to improve this performance. To achieve that, a simulation study has been carried out using Radiance program, where several cases have been examined. The study concluded that there is a direct relationship between the illuminance levels and space orientation, wall-to-window ratio, and reflectance of indoor surface materials. Also, light shelf has a crucial role in improving daylighting distribution in the space. The study therefore recommends applying these design strategies to improve daylighting performance and energy efficiency in the Gaza Strip apartment buildings. In this regard, a quantitative assessment may become part of the requirements of buildings licensing proces