Visual Discomfort Analysis as a Tool to Support Façade Shading Design: A Case Study in the Architectural Design Studio
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 28, Issue 2
Abstract
While daylight admittance in educational buildings is of high importance, the associated visual discomfort issues can negatively impact student productivity and well-being. This paper reports the outcomes of a case study of the architectural studios at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, where visual discomfort due to daylight intrusion was reported by 49% of the students, leading to difficulties while performing multiple vertical and horizontal tasks. To address this issue, visual discomfort simulation analyses were conducted for 78 view positions with respect to façade shading systems (fixed shading and dynamic electrochromic glazing). To predict the level of visual discomfort for multiple view targets, three indicators, horizontal illuminance, vertical-eye illuminance, and daylight glare probability, were used. A simulation workflow of daylight and glare was developed to shade each dynamic window individually whenever the defined criteria are met. The results showed evident reductions in the hours of visual discomfort based on the three indicators from 83%, 84%, and 37% to 8%, 19%, and 3%, respectively (southwest), and from 57%, 71%, and 13% to 2%, 10%, and 1%, respectively (northeast). The proposed simulation workflow can be used in future practices to improve façade-shading performance to protect against visual discomfort under similar climatic contexts.
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Acknowledgments
The first author is funded by a full scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
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Published In
Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 2 • June 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 17, 2021
Accepted: Dec 17, 2021
Published online: Feb 23, 2022
Published in print: Jun 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jul 23, 2022
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