Natural Lighting in Buildings

Natural lighting is an essential element in successful design in order to decrease the electrical lighting energy consumption while ensuring visual comfort such as the reduction of glare. This chapter presents the topic of daylighting as it pertains to the urban scale. The chapter first provides an overview of the several benefits of daylighting in various applications. Some fundamentals about daylighting are then presented. This is followed by the presentation of the concept of solar envelopes as an important aspect of daylighting in the urban scale. Then different studies pertaining to daylighting at the urban scale are presented.

Keywords: Climatic daylighting metrics, Daylighting, Dynamic daylighting metrics, Energy, Fresnel lenses, Light redirection, Light wells, Lighting, Radiance, Simulation, Sky types, Solar tubes, Urban design, Urban sprawl, Window treatment.