Retrofitting of deep educational studios by enhancing natural illumination

Abstract

Daylighting is a fundamental resource that enhances visual comfort and reduces energy consumption in buildings; also, it improves occupant’s health and well-being. Deep studios consume artificial lighting and energy to achieve the target lux for educational buildings in Cairo, so this paper aims to enhance the natural lighting in deep educational studios to decrease energy consumption, save energy, and make the building more sustainable. Many lighting strategies can be used to increase the dependence on natural lighting in deep spaces some of them are traditional methods like courtyards, atriums, and skylights, and others are modern techniques such as light shelves, solar tubes, light pipes, and optical fibers. The methods of this research depend on using a Lighting simulation program (Dialux) to examine the integration between natural and artificial lighting strategies to enhance Lighting performance and energy saving, and it is also used to optimize the best strategy from lighting retrofitting alternatives for educational studios. The results show that the best strategy is using a light shelf that reduces glare beside windows and lets the light penetrate in the deep parts of the space with a skylight that illuminates the central part of the space.