Design methodology and criteria for daylight and thermal comfort in nearly-zero energy office buildings in Nordic climate

The objective of this PhD thesis was to arrange for an integrated building design with respect to thermal comfort, daylighting and energy use, applicable for office buildings in Nordic climate. In order to achieve this, it is suggested that modelling of mean radiant temperature (MRT) should be improved by considering the location in the room, accounting for both long and short-wave radiation and that daylighting should be modelled in a dynamic manner. Full-scale measurements have been conducted to verify improved models for MRT and climate-based daylighting and their implementation into the simulation tool IDA ICE.

Furthermore, the control of solar shading is given attention, since it is a crucial link between the thermal and daylighting performance. The thesis presents results of an occupant survey with 46 subjects, which was carried out to investigate occupants’ preferences towards automatically controlled venetian blinds and their sensation of glare in a work environment. The results indicate that view to the outside was important for the occupants’ satisfaction. Moreover, a correlation between both vertical eye illuminance and horizontal illuminance at the desk and the occupants’ perception of glare was indicated. Based on these results and findings in the literature, a shading strategy was proposed. Its performance is verified by full-scale measurements and annual simulations.