Lighting preferences in individual offices

Abstract

Abstractorkplaces with good daylighting offer visual comfort to users, give them a series of physiological and psychological benefits and allow good performance of visual activities, besides saving energy. However, this solution is not always adopted: lighting type preferences involve many variables besides the availability of daylight. This paper explores a case study through the analysis of questionnaire answers and computer simulations of a series of metrics related to quality of lighting with the aim of finding explanations for the lighting preferences of individual office users. The results show that, although the offices present good daylighting conditions and no glare potential, and users are satisfied with daylighting, these parameters are not sufficient to explain the predominant lighting preferences. The findings have also shown that there is no consensus about which parameters potentially cause visual comfort, while the parameters that cause discomfort are clearly identified. In addition, in this study, 49% of the preference for mixed lighting (daylight plus electrical light) can be explained by the fact that mixed lighting produces better modeling than daylighting alone. Keywords

Enhancing creativity in activity‐based offices: A critical incident study of knowledge workers

“…Consideration of the nature of creative activities (formal and informal) might explain some inconsistencies in the literature on the importance of light for creativity (e.g., Meinel et al, 2017). Considering the importance of pleasant lighting for formal activities, Faria et al (2017) emphasized that there is no clarity on what constitutes pleasant lighting, but employees understand what would create discomfort. In addition, we found some features to be important depending on the level of creative activities.…”