Daylighting Design Update
Optimizing Daylighting Design
With an understanding of all of the aspects of daylighting discussed so far, the natural question is how to put it all together for the best results. While each member of the design team will bring their own background, resources, and perspective to the design process, the following guidelines can help to optimize the outcome:
- Design in concert with the rest of the building. Daylighting does not have to be treated as a distinct entity or exercise, but should be approached as an integrated aspect of the total building design. In association with the abundance of interrelated variables, the process will likely be more iterative than linear. The goal is to find the optimal configuration and balance with respect to aesthetics, energy performance, illuminance, and glare mitigation. From a design standpoint, the size, shape, and location of the glazing must be coordinated with the overall exterior and interior designs.
- Design for the climate and site. While repetitive daylighting solutions across projects may initially seem feasible, differing project locations may ultimately require dramatically different design approaches. Disparities between northern and southern climates are clear, yet locations much closer to one another can be subject to starkly different conditions of weather and sunlight exposure. Specifically site-specific influences from surrounding buildings, trees, water, or other features can have dramatic impacts.
- Design for different building sides. Many buildings are being designed with sensitivity to the compass orientation of each facade. This approach recognizes that, in the United States, southern facades often receive greater amounts of sunlight than northern facades, while eastern and western facades may have similar exposure but at different times of the day. Hence the most appropriate design strategies may be for different facade treatments or glazing selections to be implemented on different sides of the building.
- Design with glass. By understanding the different attributes of different glass and glazing products, architects have a broad palette of choices available in terms of color, transparency, and many different types of performance. Glass can help a building to achieve both stunning aesthetics and robust energy performance.
- Design using available resources. Manufacturers can provide very detailed information to fine-tune the glass glazing selection within the overall building design process. Powerful online tools are available to generate robust center-of-glass performance metrics, visualize glazing appearance under a range of real-world conditions, and explore the overall building energy performance. Some even help to facilitate BIM modeling.
Photo courtesy of Guardian
Online tools from glass manufacturers allow architects to review, select, and envision different choices in available glazing products.
Case Study 4
Photo courtesy of Guardian; Photo credit: Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation
Project: One Canalside
Location: Buffalo, NY
Owner/ Developer: Benderson Development
Architect: Fontanese Folts Aubrecht Ernst Architects, P.C.
Challenge: Once a thriving business center along the Erie Canal, the William J. Donovan State Office Building eventually became just another shell in a barren and inaccessible part of the Buffalo, New York, waterfront. Like similar government buildings constructed in the ’60s, the building was not built for efficiency, and became dormant in 2007. Fontanese Folts Aubrecht Ernst Architects worked hard to determine how much of the facility, renamed One Canalside, could be saved. While structurally sound, the building envelope was outdated and performed poorly. Not only were heat, light, and weather issues to address, but since the building is located within 150 feet of an elevated interstate and near a multi-modal transportation facility, noise mitigation was also a significant challenge.
Design Criteria: All development within One Canalside was required to be LEED certified, and this project was LEED Gold pre-certified. Extensive design guidelines required the base of the building to use glass for the first two stories to exaggerate the importance of the ground-level retail. Tinted or reflective glass was not permitted.
Solution: One Canalside was stripped to its core structure before being transformed into a symbol of a region’s rebirth. “To meet performance and energy standards, the building essentially needed to be re-skinned entirely,” says Philip S. DiNicola, R.A., principal at Fontanese Folts Aubrecht Ernst. “That meant doing away with a curtain wall system that was outdated, inefficient and dilapidated.” Hence, the existing envelope was removed from the original building, along with any non-permanent structure elements. A new, high-performance curtain wall system was installed in its place to meet the prescribed design and energy standards, including requirements for LEED certification. Through design analysis and assessment, the architects selected a clear, heat-strengthened glass product with a very light silver/blue exterior appearance to stay within the design guidelines of the development. The glass produced excellent solar control at 0.23 SHGC with medium visible light transmission of 43 percent. That relates to an outstanding light to solar gain ratio of 1.89. To address the noise, triple-glazed units were used for the office space on the upper four floors and for the hotel’s lower floors. A 1-inch double-glazed (½-inch air gap) system, was also used for the vision units on the retail spaces on the first floor, while 1-inch insulating units were installed at the spandrel locations in the curtainwall portions.
Results: “There is an abundance of natural light in our offices,” says Becky Farbo, chief marketing officer for Phillips Lytle LLP, the law firm occupying the top four floors of One Canalside. “We know that environments with more daylight can improve morale and well-being, as well as realizing energy efficiency.”
Conclusion
Daylighting is a powerful attribute of building design. Understanding and implementing the available resources, principles, and standards in the design process can yield significant results. Daylighting has been shown to help improve indoor environmental quality and energy performance, thus contributing directly to LEED certification. Overall, daylighting helps architects create buildings that are better designed, more appealing to users, and more cost effective to operate.
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Guardian Industries Corp. |
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