Review of the Current State and Future Development in Standardizing Natural Lighting in Interiors

Abstract

Three elements mainly wind, water and sun seemed to determine in ancient ages the basic phenomena of life on Earth. Architectural history documented the importance of sun influence on urban and building construction already in layouts of Mesopotamian and Greek houses. Not only sun radiation but especially daylight played a significant role in the creation of indoor environment. Later, in the 20th century, a search of interaction between human life in buildings and natural conditions were studied considering well­being and energy conscious design recently using computer tools in complex research and more detail interdisciplinary solutions. At the same time the restricted daytime availability of natural light was supplemented by more efficient and continually cheaper artificial lighting of interiors. There are two main approaches to standardize the design and evaluation of indoor visual environment. The first is based on the determination of the minimum requirements respecting human health and visibility needs in all activities while the second emphasizes the behaviour and comfort of occupants in buildings considering year­around natural changes of physical quantities like light, temperature, noise and energy consumption. The new current standardization basis for daylight evaluation and window design criteria stimulate the study of methodology principles that historically were based on the overcast type of sky luminance pattern avoiding yearly availability of sky illuminance levels. New trends to base the daylight standardization on yearly or long­term availability of daylight are using the averages or median sky illuminance levels to characterise local climatological conditions. This paper offers the review and discussion about the principles of the natural light standardization with a short introduction to the history and current state, with a trial to focus on the possible development of lighting engineering and its standards in future.