| Abstract | In a rapidly changing world, design professionals rely more than ever on solid performance measures to support their design decisions. The role of computerized building design tools is to provide such information efficiently. Given the breadth of choices and concerns that a design team is confronted with, various design aspects constantly compete for the team's attention. To remain competitive, design professionals must weigh the value of information gained through any one simulation tool against the invested time and financial resources, as well as against the value of comparable information that might be gained through the use of other or no tools. Because daylighting is a declared design feature of virtually all 'sustainable/green' buildings, and because it is difficult to evaluate its quality and quantity in a space through simple rules of thumb, daylighting software should have a high rate of acceptance and adoption within the market. This is the underlying notion for the development of daylight simulation tools. The research described in this paper was motivated by the authors' observation that despite the availability of simplified and detailed daylight simulation methods, none of these tools has yet penetrated the building design market to any great degree. The objective of this study therefore was to identify weaknesses of existing daylighting design software packages, better understand design practitioners' needs, and accordingly provide guidance to software developers. The paper briefly summarizes results from previous surveys on the use of building simulation software and presentssome key findings of an online survey that particularly concentrated on daylight simulation software. This work was carried out within the context of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) research project 'Task 31: Daylighting Buildings in the 21st Century'. The project's overall objective is to foster the use of daylight in commercial buildings through a better understanding of occupant needs', more integrated lighting and shading controls, and improved daylighting design software. This study contributed to the latter work package. |
|---|
