Evaluation of Swedish daylight regulations in university building - Validation and applicability

Abstract: Daylight availability in buildings faces numerous challenges in a world where energy efficiency,thermal comfort, and sustainability take center stage. Daylight is well-known for its role in reducingartificial lighting consumption and enhancing the well-being and performance of building occupants.However, a crucial issue arises with the incorporation of large windows to introduce natural light, asthis may compromise the thermal efficiency of a room. Designers must strike a delicate balancebetween optimizing daylight and ensuring thermal comfort to achieve energy-efficient buildings. Asthe global population continues to grow and urban areas become more densely populated, this issuebecomes increasingly complex and sensitive to address. Consequently, it is becoming urgent toscrutinize the effectiveness in addressing these challenges. When assessing daylight in various rooms, prevailing requirements in different regulations orstandards tend to mix all types of buildings. The author contends that a more nuanced and tailoredapproach should be adopted, depending on the type of building and the intended room usage. Whilemost studies conducted in Sweden focus on analyzing residential buildings, this master’s Thesis shiftsits focus to Swedish university buildings. The objective is to compare the existing requirement levelswith students' subjective perceptions of daylight quality, with the aim of determining whether thecurrent standards are adequate or should be adjusted. The study centers around a specific building comprising 21 distinct study spaces located at the KTHcampus in Stockholm, Sweden. Each of these spaces possessed unique characteristics that are relevantto the research. To facilitate this investigation, various modeling and daylight simulation tools wereemployed, including Rhinoceros 7, Ladybug Tools, and other editing software such as Microsoft Wordand Adobe illustrator. Ladybug relies on Radiance, a validated daylight simulation engine, for analyzingstatic and dynamic daylight metrics. This thesis, supported by survey and simulation results, illustrates that students studying in universitybuildings have a significantly higher demand for natural light compared to the levels established bySwedish regulations. These findings underscore the imperative need for comprehensive research onthe actual requirements of occupants in university buildings, with the aim of revising and modernizingthe existing Swedish regulations. The potential differentiation in standards between residential anduniversity buildings warrants further exploration.