Natural Lighting for Sustainability of Cultural Heritage Refurbishment

Abstract

Our present research, starting from a previous study, aimed to define a methodological approach for sustainable lighting designs in a historical library, focusing on lighting quality, mainly obtained from the optimal use of natural light and its combination with the artificial one. A historical Florentine monastery, which is now a university library, was used as a pilot project. The proposed method forms an essential part of widening and deepening the recent study. Results have shown that this method will allow for adaptive lighting, based on the optimal control and use of natural light, historical–philological re-reading of the space, cultural heritage preventive protection and conservation, with the aim of building adaptive reuse, and it can be extended to similar cultural heritage cases, but also non-listed buildings and current designs. This research demonstrates how a correct natural lighting design can be a tool for sustainable refurbishment, guaranteeing cultural heritage conservation and preventive protection, and recovery of the historical, architectural and philological value of old and/or listed buildings, which have been converted to uses, often diametrically opposed to the original ones.

Study on the Application in the Protection and Renewal of Ancient Architectural Cultural Heritage in the Age of Smart Media

“…On this basis, digital images of cultural heritage are established by combining web technology, and then the uncertainty probability of web visualization is calculated to complete the modeling of cultural heritage on the web and classify the cultural heritage on the web. Literature [8] proposes the optimal control and use of natural light based on natural light. It confirms the research on the protection and inheritance of ancient architectural, and cultural heritage based on natural light control technology through simulation experiments.…”

Teaching Lighting Design for Cultural Heritage in the Digital and Pandemic Era: Experiencing New and Old Techniques

“…Sometimes new luminaires' features can be created; the most advanced lighting techniques can be applied for obtaining smart and sustainable solutions. When indoor spaces are used as museums or for exhibition purposes, the visit tour plays a significant role in lighting decisions; furthermore, the use of daylight must be accurately evaluated [54,55] and, when possible, maintained and managed through proper control systems [56,57]. Those mentioned above are only some of the countless cases that can be a case study for a teaching program on cultural heritage.…”

The Assessment of Cities Physical Complexity through Urban Energy Consumption

“…Some strategies provide a good relationship with the sun path, get better natural lighting, and ventilation, attaining thermal, visual, and acoustic comfort can achieve Energy efficiency in urban areas [9]. In other words, through an angle of buildings, the passive solar design directly affects energy consumption by affecting the form and shape of the built environment [10].…”