Natural versus artificial lighting use in an office building under clear sunny skies.

Belakehal, Azeddine; Aoul, Kheira Tabet; Bennadji, Amar

Abstract

Under clear sunny skies, a building requires more knowledge in terms of architectural daylighting design because of the complexity of the phenomenon and the wide variety of its parameters and impacts. This study focuses on office employees' behaviour in relation to natural and/or artificial lighting and investigates the relationship between: i) the natural/artifical lighting use, ii) the perceptual views induced/generated by the related internal luminous environment, iii) the impact of the external natural luminous environment on the recourse to natural and/or artifical lighting, iv) the office conformation, v) the internal movable shading devices use, and vi) the users' characteristics. This POE investigates an office building located in the city of Biskra in Algeria, where a clear and sunny sky combined with a hot arid climate prevails. The study results revealed that: i) the office employees perceive daylight somehow differently from the attitude towards it, ii) the window location and some of the users' characteristics dictate artificial lighting usage, iii) no direct relationships were found between the use of the moveable shading devices and the recourse to the artificial lighting, whilst vi) the impact of the external natural luminous environment on the use of the moveable shading devices was confirmed.

Citation

BELAKEHAL, A., TABET AOUL, K. and BENNADJI, A. 2017. Natural versus artificial lighting use in an office building under clear sunny skies. In Brotas, L., Roaf, S. and Nicol, F. (eds.) Proceedings of the 33rd Passive low energy architecture international conference (PLEA 2017): design to thrive, 2-5 July 2017, Edinburgh, UK. Edinburgh: NCEUB [online], volume 2, pages 3143-3150. Available from: https://plea2017.net/wp-content/themes/plea2017/docs/PLEA2017_proceedings_volume_II.pdf

• Conference Name: 33rd Passive low energy architecture international conference (PLEA 2017)
• Conference Location: Edinburgh, UK
• Start Date: Jul 2, 2017
• End Date: Jul 5, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Jul 2, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jul 2, 2017
• Publication Date: Jul 5, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 6, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 6, 2017
• Publisher: NCEUB Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings
• Pages: 3143-3150
• Keywords: Daylighting; Artificial lighting; Office building; POE; Clear sunny sky
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2536
• Publisher URL: https://plea2017.net/wp-content/themes/plea2017/docs/PLEA2017_proceedings_volume_II.pdf