Adaptive Façade Design for the Regulation of Visual Comfort

Abstract

The building sector in Europe represents 40% of the energy consumption and, of this amount, 26% is represented by office buildings that demand 44% of the energy only for lighting. Therefore, architects and engineers have a big responsibility to find design strategies and technologies that answer to this issue. In particular, a possible approach is the application of adaptive façades that respond to outdoor and indoor stimuli in order to fulfil requirements. In this research, a definition of adaptive façade will be given, and different typologies of adaptive facades will be investigated in order to understand what their future trends are. Moreover, particular attention will be given to smart windows and to daylight management strategies in order to provide a design solution that improves the visual comfort of an office space by solving glare, increasing the amount of daylight and therefore reducing the energy demand for electrical lighting. Furthermore, because of the strong correlation between visual comfort and thermal comfort - due to the fact that both of them depend on the solar radiation - the design will be further improved in order to achieve a façade that controls visible light and solar heat gain independently. This will enable to achieve the optimal configuration over the year and decrease the overall energy consumption of the building.