Adaptive Façade Design for Glare Mitigation and Outside Views in Work Environments

Abstract

We know that providing more natural light in a building, results in higher worker performance and health benefits for in office spaces. Using fully glazed building façades to maximize daylight penetration in office buildings, may however, result in visual comfort due to daylighting glare. The challenge is to design a façade shading system that optimizes daylight penetration, maximizes the outside view, and reduces glare and visual discomfort at the same time. One of the most popular shading systems for reducing glare and improving visual comfort is the adaptive façade system (AFs) which is often used at the cost of reducing or eliminating the outside view. In this thesis, a parametric-based adaptive façade system (PAFs) is proposed to improve a conventional AF, to mitigate daylighting discomfort glare while optimizing daylight penetration and outside views in an office environment. This study investigates the application of this method for a real office space in the city of Isfahan, Iran, which has a hot and dry climate. Computer simulations of parametric-based adaptive façade models are created by using a Grasshopper software plug-in for the simulation program Rhino. These simulations are developed for several variables including indoor views, horizontal and vertical motions of the dynamic adaptive façade, at different days and times to assess its performance. The environmental plug-ins of Ladybug and Honeybee are also employed thereafter, to analyze the visual performance variables of Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI), Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA), Daylight Glare Index (DGI) and Daylight Glare Probability (DGP) in the workplace. The final results confirm the efficiency of the PAF’s daylighting and view control strategies. The DGP, DGI, UDI are less than .35, less than 24, and between 300-700 Lux respectively, thereby meeting Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) guidelines (2010) at least 80 percent of the time while maintaining and maximizing an outside view for the users.