Sunspace design solutions based on daylight performance in a multi-storey residential building.

Abstract: With the development of low energy buildings in Northern European countries, conflicts regarding balancing daylight and energy performances in buildings arise. Therefore, design solutions that balance daylight and energy performances in buildings are needed. MKB Greenhouse is a newly-built, Miljöbyggnad Gold and Feby-Passive House certified, multi-family housing in Malmö, Sweden. Greenhouse also encourages urban farming by adding sunspace and balcony as the cultivation area. On the contrary, the addition of sunspace and balcony can affect both daylight and energy performances in the adjacent living space. This thesis, as a part of daylight and energy research project at White Arkitekter AB, focused mainly on the impact and optimization of sunspace and balcony design on the daylight performance of MKB Greenhouse. Four apartments with different floor heights and orientations were modelled using Rhino3D and simulated in Grasshopper using Radiance and Daysim as the daylight simulation engines. Studying the impact of the actual sunspace and balcony on the daylight performance in the adjacent living spaces (living room, kitchen and workshop), the results showed that the daylight received in the adjacent spaces was reduced by at least 50% compared to the apartments without sunspace and balcony. Different sunspace and balcony design parameters, such as geometry, glazing-wall-ratio (GWR) and light reflectance value (LRV), were investigated to study the effect on the daylight conditions in the adjacent living spaces. Based on the parametric studies, it was found that geometry was the most important factor affecting the daylighting conditions in the adjacent spaces followed by the GWR and LRV of the sunspace and balcony. Orientation, floor heights and site’s obstructions had larger impact on the daylight autonomy (DA) of the adjacent spaces. This thesis revealed that the least depth and the shortest length of the sunspace and balcony gave the highest average daylight factor (DF) and average daylight autonomy (DA) in all living spaces of the four studied apartments. However, in designing a sunspace and balcony, one must not forget the functionality of the space itself. All determining aspects such as functionality, climate and geometry should always be taken into consideration to create a high-performing sunspace and balcony. The findings of this thesis are further analysed in the whole research project to develop sunspace and balcony design solutions that improves the daylight and energy performances of the building.