Themes of wellbeing associated with daylighting practice and shading systems in working environment

Salah mansour abdelrahman, M; Coates, SP

Abstract

Daylighting conditions throughout an internal space directly impact building occupant health and
wellbeing. Various physiological and psychological benefits have been attributed to the presence of daylight in
buildings. A shading system is considered one of the most preferred strategies to enhance building facade
performance. Shading advantages are limited to protecting a building facade from direct sunlight issues and
controlling the amount of natural light in a space. Recommended practices in daylighting design primarily focus
on improving energy efficiency rather than health and well-being potential. While some of the biological
influences associated with the amount of daylight received by building occupants and its impact on their stress,
level of productivity, and sleep quality are well documented, there is a general ambiguity in the literature about
measuring occupant wellbeing related to daylighting design. Many studies relied on assessing daylight exposure
as an indicator to measure users' health and well-being directly. Other studies measure visual comfort resulting
from having enough contrast in daylighting Illuminance as a way to quantify wellbeing. This paper aims to
define themes of wellbeing related to daylight design founded in related studies referring to the role of shading
systems to improve daylight inside the working environment. This paper is structured into three sections; the
first section aims to provide background information to those who are not deeply involved in the topic through a
review of what wellbeing means in theories and why work and wellbeing are important. The second section is a
critical review of 12 related studies using a thematic analysis method to extract the approaches used to quantify
wellbeing related to daylighting and shading systems. The final section provides a summary of the article,
highlights the main knowledge contributions, and provides future research recommendations. The findings
illustrate the gaps found in wellbeing assessment tools and the needs to establish a holistic approach consisting
of three factors: daylight, outside view, and shading systems.

Citation

Salah mansour abdelrahman, M., & Coates, S. Themes of wellbeing associated with daylighting practice and shading systems in working environment. Presented at IPGRC 2022: Resilience in Research and Practice, Online/Virtual

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: IPGRC 2022: Resilience in Research and Practice
• Conference Location: Online/Virtual
• Publication Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 15, 2023
• Publisher URL: https://hub.salford.ac.uk/ipgrc-conference-2022/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference