Evaluation of daylighting systems and components

The research activity in this field is mainly devoted at studying the luminous performance of traditional and innovative daylighting systems (blinds, shading systems, lightshelves, daylight guidance systems, etc.) and it is aimed at providing information to manufacturers and guidelines for use by architects and lighting designers during the design stage.

The research program is meant to contribute to assess the performances of daylighting systems using different approaches:

• scaled reproduction of daylighting components, application to scale models and analysis of lighting performances under artificial sky (for diffuse lighting component) and artificial sun (for direct lighting component), considering different sky conditions and site locations;
• analysis of lighting performance of 1:1 scale components under artificial sky and sun (considering different sky conditions and site locations);
• numerical simulations by means of daylighting programmes (Radiance, Daysim, Ecotect etc.);
• objective evaluation and subjective survey of environmental lighting performance in field studies (spot measurements and long term monitoring).