An unobtrusive practical method to derive individual's lighting conditions in office environments

The benefits of light in offices beyond enabling visual tasks have been demonstrated in former studies. Light positively influences outcome measures such as human's health, wellbeing, visual comfort, motivation, and environmental satisfaction. In order to measure the effects of light on the individual outcome measures, it is of high importance to correctly measure lighting conditions in realistic environments per individual. This paper describes a six-step practical method to derive lighting conditions for all work places in an office building based on continuous reference measurements. The method proposed in this paper allows the shift from laboratory studies to field studies so that the real effect of office lighting can be investigated simultaneously while the office worker is doing his or her real work.