Methodology for Assessing Daylighting Design Strategies in Classroom with a Climate-Based Method

Considering the importance of daylight in the performance and well-being of the students, an investigation has been carried out in daylit classrooms. The objective was applying a methodology that integrates the daylight variations to know the annual lighting performance in typologies that resulted from passive design strategies in order to compare their performance. The context of the study was three zones of Chile: north, center and south. The study was done through a climate-based daylight modelling method using Radiance software. The interior illuminance was evaluated in relation to a target illuminance value (goal-oriented assessment), for which five intervals are defined: low, too low, in range, high and too high. The aim of the goal-oriented approach is to set a target range of values and assess the percentage of time over the year where each range is reached and the percentage of spaces in a temporal map within in range during the year. To see a compliance or non-compliance indicator, a category is proposed that considers the average annual illuminance “in range” over the year identifying which one is the most efficient. Finally, it is concluded that the information obtained is based on target ranges, which allows guiding the design decisions, effectively recognizing the annual performance.