The Role of Light Shelf and Window Size on Daylight Performance of an Architecture Studio

Introduction

Daylight is a critical factor influencing human health in an environment and uniform distribution (Alhagla, Mansour and Elbassuoni, 2019). It is significant in every building, especially in educational ones, because it is essential for the educational process's physical and psychological aspects in a classroom (Galal 2019). In terms of physical aspects, daylight significantly influences student health because it is associated with the human body's eyesight and biological characteristics (Kralikova, Dzunova, and Rusko, 2020). Additionally, it contributes to students having higher productivity and satisfaction when they have access to daylight (Day, Futrell, Cox, et al., 2019). Daylight-related problems may occur due to lack of daylight, availability of excessive daylight, glare, flicker, and shadows (Liu, Qu, Ren, et al. 2022). Due to glazed surfaces without any solar control strategies, people have started to experience thermal and visual comfort problems related to poor daylight performance (Day, Futrell, Cox, et al., 2019). There may be very dark and very bright surfaces. Human productivity decreases due to the lack of daylight. Excessive illuminance influences human health. Glazed surfaces increase energy consumption due to artificial light usage and excessive heat gain (Skotnicova, Lausova, and Michalcova, 2016). The design phase needs to consider the proper distribution of daylight-related strategies. Studies show that integrating solar control systems with window-based variables significantly influences daylight performance (Cesari, Valdiserri, Coccagna, et al., 2018). Thus, this paper aims to understand how windows and shading elements are crucial for a building’s daylight performance. The study intends to respond to: “How is window size effective for daylight performance?” and “What is the influence of light shelves on the proper distribution of daylight and artificial light requirement?”