The effective integration of daylighting considerations into the design process requires many issues to be addressed simultaneously, such as daily and seasonal variations, illumination and thermal comfort. To address the need for early integration into the design process, a new approach called Lightsolve, has been developed. Its key objectives are to support the design process using a goal-oriented approach based on iterative design improvement suggestions; to provide climate-based annual metrics in a visual and synthesized format; and to relate quantitative and qualitative performance criteria using daylighting analysis data in various forms. This methodology includes the development of a time-segmentation process to represent weather and time in a condensed form, the adaptation of daylight metrics that encompass temporal and spatial considerations, and the creation of an interactive analysis interface to explore design options and design iterations. This system relies on optimization techniques to generate these suggestions. Lightsolve allows the designer to explore other design alternatives that may better fulfill his objectives and to learn about appropriate strategies to resolve daylight or sunlight penetration issues. It offers architects and building engineers support for daylighting design that can be employed interactively within the existing design process.
Abstract:Designing spaces that are able to balance illumination, glare and solar gains over a year is a real challenge, yet a problem faced every day by building designers. To assist them, a full year, climate-based daylighting simulation method, called Lightsolve, was developed, providing guided search based on the variation of daylight performance over the year by combining temporal performance visualization with spatial renderings. This paper focuses on the user's perspective for Lightsolve. After a summary of its foundational concepts, it discusses the results of several pilot and more formal user studies conducted in educational contexts. As a core element of the paper, the method and results of an original, design-oriented user study on Lightsolve's expert system are discussed. It was conducted to determine how well its decision-making algorithm would work when independent human interactions were included. It demonstrated that the expert system is generally successful as a performance-driven design tool respectful of the non-deterministic nature of the design process itself, and as a method for educating designers to improve daylighting performance.Keywords: daylighting, goal-based design support, expert system, climate-based modeling, guided search, user interactivity Word count: 8619 Highlights:• Comprehensive, goal-based design support focused on daylight dynamics • Original user study was designed to integrate ill-defined nature of design process • User studies confirmed tool potential for interactivity in early stages of design • Expert system shown successful in educating designers about daylighting performance
Decisions affecting building form and orientation, and choices regarding opening size, type and positioning have a great effect on the building's access to daylight and are typically made during the earliest stages of architectural design. Computer simulations of daylight performance have become a powerful tool for making design decisions, especially since the diurnal and seasonal changes in daylight necessitate an annual, climate inclusive performance analysis because of the strong influence of climate conditions on daylight accessibility. However, the amount and complexity of information generated by an annual analysis can be overwhelming, so a need exists for appropriate, user-friendly methods to process and communicate these data to the designer. To address this problem, an alternative approach to traditional daylight analysis is explored here to develop appropriate goal-based metrics and annual graphic display formats which present illuminance, glare and solar heat gain data with a focus on time variations. Graphic outputs are created using the temporal map format to improve understanding of daylight performance as it varies over the year, and to enable comparisons to be made between spatial and non-spatial quantities. In particular, a consistent and intuitive triangular colour scale is proposed to express goal compliance, so as to enhance further comparability between dissimilar quantities and thereby assist with critical choices and performance tradeoffs during the design process.Keywords: building design, building performance, daylight design, daylight simulation, glare, goal-based metrics, illuminance, solar heat gain, temporal maps Les décisions affectant la forme et l'orientation d'un bâtiment et les choix relatifs à la taille, au type et au positionnement des ouvertures ont une grande influence sur l'accès du bâtiment à la lumière naturelle et sont habituellement opérés dans les toutes premières phases de la conception architecturale. Les simulations informatiques de la performance en éclairage naturel sont devenues un puissant outil de prise de décision en matière de conception, en particulier dans la mesure où les variations de la lumière naturelle au fil de la journée et des saisons nécessitent une analyse annuelle de la performance qui prend en compte le climat, vu sa grande influence sur l'accès à la lumière naturelle. Cependant, l'on peut être submergé par le volume et la complexité des informations générées par une telle analyse annuelle, de sorte qu' un besoin émerge pour des méthodes plus intuitives et adaptées pour traiter ces données et les communiquer au concepteur. Afin de remédier à ce problème, il est exploré une approche alternative est explorée ici, visant à développer des techniques de mesures fondées sur des objectifs, et des formats de représentation graphique annuelle présentant les données relatives à l'éclairement, à l'éblouissement et à et aux gains solaires en mettant l'accent sur les variations sur le temps. Des visualisations graphiques sont créées, qui utilisent le format ...
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