A photobiological approach to biophilic design in extreme climates

Abstract

Highlights• The biophilic design approach has potential benefits in extreme cold climates, especially for Nordic occupants.• Lighting design should be developed to deal with the challenging state of living and working in northern latitudes.• Non-image-forming effects of light have become the missing link between human needs and lighting design standards.• Adaptive envelopes should be developed to optimize biophilic quality and fulfil the photobiological needs of Nordic people.

Biophilic, photobiological and energy-efficient design framework of adaptive building façades for Northern Canada

“…Biophilic design guidelines offer several recommendations 8,9 which could be adjusted to promote human-nature relationships in the extreme cold climate of Northern Canada 10,11 . People spent ample time in buildings in such climates, thus the biophilic approach has greater benefits 12,13 .…”

“…time giver or synchronizer)' to reset or synchronize circadian clocks [26][27][28] . IF and NIF systems demonstrate different responses to various light parameters such as quantity, spectrum, time and duration of impulses (for further details refer to Parsaee et al 10 , Refinetti 16 , DiLaura et al 18 , CIE 20 , Khademagha et al 29 , Berman and Clear 30 , Khademagha et al 31 ). Occupants' IF and NIF responses/requirements are different regarding hourly/seasonally photoperiods and different activities in the building [32][33][34] .…”

“…A proper intensity and chromaticity of light at the right time must be provided to occupants 20,35 . NIF responses of occupants have recently been addressed in the context of built environments 20,29,36 , whereas the IF responses have been widely studied 10,20,35 . Lighting guidelines and standards of North America have been developed for IF needs and negligible attention is given to NIF needs 18,19,37 .…”

“…ABFs is claimed to offer mechanisms to respond appropriately to occupants' needs and environmental boundary conditions in different climates [97][98][99] . From this point of view, ABFs have the potential to provide Northern Canadian occupants with a healthy and comfortable indoor environment 10,11,100 . This paper contributes to the development of healthy, climate-responsive and energy-efficient ABFs for the application in Northern Canada.…”

“…Figure 4 displays characteristics of human, nature, buildings and façades with respect to northern-latitude climates and biophilic design recommendations proposed by Browning et al 9 and Kellert and Calabrese 8 . No index or metric has thus far been developed to quantify and monitor the biophilic quality of a space 10,106 . Some biophilic recommendations can still be considered, which are applicable to the design of façades for Northern climates, as the following items.…”