Daylighting

Reprinted with permission from Enlighten: The Bimonthly Newsletter of the Daylighting Collaborative, June 2009: Aesthetics often drive the glazing selection process: color, transparency, reflectivity, and translucency all have a tremendous impact on the appearance of a building.The challenge is to meet the aesthetic design criteria while also achieving the best energy performance. There are two [...]

The Solar Decathlon, an educational project produced by the U.S. Department of Energy, joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. Team California won for Architecture and Communications. Check out their house here. http://www.youtube.com/v/nvHIxG9_xs0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 The University of Minnesota won for Lighting Design: [...]

Jim Benya, PE, FIES, FIALD, LC of Benya Lighting Design and Abby Vogen Horn, daylighting champion for the Energy Center of Wisconsin, are teaming up to present a full-day workshop: “Lighting and Daylighting Design with Efficiency” on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the USGBC’s Greenbuild Conference in Phoenix, AZ. According to Greenbuild, “This training will [...]

On October 14, 2009, at 7:00 PM EST, Lisa Heschong, principal of Heschong Mahone Group and a licensed architect, will be conducting a 70-minute (+ Q&A) webcast through IES that will detail: * Strategies to integrate daylight with electric lighting for offices, schools, retail, and other workplace environments * Current capabilities of tools to predict [...]

Daylight factor, a metric used to express the availability of daylight in a space, is explained clearly here.

Webinar: “Daylighting: Lighting Every Building Using the Sky” Presented by: Energy Center University in partnership with the Daylighting Collaborative, presenting faculty Abby Vogen Horn, Senior Project Manager, Energy Center of Wisconsin When: March 18, 2009 at 1:30pm – 3:00pm CDT What: Integrated daylighting design is the key to whole building energy savings and a successful [...]

Daylighting is recognized as best practice in energy codes and industry standards due to its documented positive effects on worker satisfaction and performance and potential to generate substantial energy savings. Daylighting and daylighting control are now encouraged or required by California’s Title 24 energy code, LEED-NC v.2.2, Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools, and ASHRAE [...]

Interested in new lighting technologies? PIER has published three briefs about emerging technologies that are available for free download. Note: All files download as PDF files. Savings Persist with Monitoring-Based Commissioning (TB-39) shows how monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx), a program approach that combines permanent building-energy-system monitoring with standard retrocommissioning practices, can provide substantial, persistent energy savings. [...]