The implementation of natural lighting for human health from a planning perspective

Abstract

This paper makes the case that a significant factor in the failure to ensure adequate daylighting performance for interior spaces is often due to the inadequacy of methods used at the early stages of planning. All of the methods currently used for daylight/sunlight planning share common failings: they cannot make meaningful estimations of performance at the outset, nor can the methods used be extended/refined to overcome these failings. Thus, it is argued, a new approach is required. The paper gives an overview of the history and development of methods to predict performance; from the conception of the daylight factor to climate-based daylight modelling. The impact of prescriptive planning regulations is described using New York City as the example. The paper concludes with an outline of a new modelling schema which can provide the much needed link between the real-world practicalities of building planning and the need to determine realistic indicators of building performance at the earliest stages of obtaining planning consent.