It seems like an alarmingly obvious idea, when considered for a moment. It gets light out every day. Why must humans duplicate this effort, using large amounts of energy to light interiors? We could all take our desks and such outdoors. Or…
Abby Vogen Horn of the Energy Center of Wisconsin is the Program Director of the Daylighting Collaborative, and has been advocating energy efficiency and daylighting design for almost 15 years now.
How did the Daylighting Collaborative get started?
The Daylighting Collaborative was initiated almost eleven years ago by the utilities in Wisconsin through the Energy Center of Wisconsin. Daylighting had been identified by Energy Center research staff as being the most underdeveloped opportunity to realize significant energy savings in non-residential buildings. The goal was to provide current information to the design and owner communities about how to readily modify designs to take advantage of all the free natural light available during the daytime hours. Unfortunately, with the widespread acceptance of electric lighting and cooling, we forgot about how to utilize this free natural resource.
Fortunately, the green movement has helped revive interest in daylighting due to its significant potential for energy savings. Daylighting quickly moves to the top of the list for true green designers as the most significant green strategy is making a building that uses less energy due to the incredible environmental impact of energy generation. The bonus of incorporating daylighting into your design is the potential to create not only energy efficiency but create beautiful and well illuminated spaces for occupants.
The name of the program was very deliberate – collaborative. We believe that by working together in partnership with other programs and proponents of daylighting we can be more successful than by working alone.
Can this effort be expanded geographically or otherwise replicated?
From its inception, the Daylighting Collaborative has been national in scope. Although initially funded by Wisconsin utilities, we almost immediately began networking and developing project partnerships across the country. The Daylighting Collaborative is a living resource that acts as a portal to critical information and resources that may not otherwise be found by the design and owner communities. In addition to the portal aspect, the Collaborative develops and expands content as we receive requests for information that are not readily found elsewhere. We have a panel of experts from around the country who provide answers through our “Ask the Expert” interface available to visitors to www.daylighting.org. These folks, in addition to our Advisory Board, are comprised of recognized daylighting design experts and practitioners with wide experience who provide critical feedback to the design community. These answers serve as a starting point for content development and are archived at www.daylighting.org for others to learn from.
The Daylighting Collaborative works to support existing resources but also supplement information and technical education to fill needs not addressed elsewhere. The fact that our resources and mo Collaborative into an international resources. We are continually reaching out to other organizations and resources available around the world to ensure our visitors have access to them.
What’s the difference between daylighting by design and just having a bunch of windows, skylights or glass walls?
To truly consider a design daylit, it must reduce the overall energy consumption of the space. Simply introducing natural light into a space does not mean it’s a quality illuminated space or that it saves energy. Daylighting design requires a bit of a return to the master builder concept – a designer must know some about a number of professions – lighting design, engineering, landscape designer, planner as well as architect.
Daylighting design requires consideration of multiple design elements, and making a conscious decision as to how you can, or cannot, address them in your project. It requires deliberate thought to ensure quality of the visual environment (daylighting does not mean creating a greenhouse!) as well as realize all the potential energy savings (incorporating controls to reduce electric lighting levels or turn off the lights, sizing the HVAC system appropriately due to reduced electric lighting system and appropriate performance levels of glazing and skylights, appropriate window to wall ratios and skylight to ceiling ratios that maintain the integrity of the envelope while balancing the benefits of introducing natural light into the space).
There exist multiple schools of thought regarding design approaches to incorporate daylighting into your design that vary from simply taking advantage to what you already have available to you to incorporating cutting edge technologies to help you reap every kWh advantage. None is right or wrong…but simply what is most appropriate for your goals, your experience level, your building type, your budget and your region.
What does “cool daylighting” mean?
Daylighting has the potential to reduce energy use across multiple building systems, including cooling. “Cool daylighting” is a descriptive term coined by Steve Ternoey of LIGHTFORMS to describe the opportunity to not only reduce lighting load but the cooling load associated with electric lighting and poor performing windows and skylights, which provide our access to natural light. We have adopted the term as a way to educate designers and owners on the vast opportunity to realize significant energy savings across multiple systems through appropriate daylighting design.
Now, again, there is no one daylighting design “recipe”. There are multiple design approaches that may work for your project depending on your climate, region, budget, scope, building type and occupancy. Through our technical education and training offerings, in addition to the website content, we work to provide designers with a better understanding of how buildings use energy and adopt the appropriate daylighting design approaches and technologies that allow you to realize all the potential energy savings, in addition to the reduced lighting load.
Is there resistance out there from traditional energy providers when you start talking about processes and projects that completely sidestep their products? To put it another way, some skylight people have been advocating daylighting since Jimmy Carter was president – has this knowledge been suppressed?
Well, the knowledge has not been intentionally suppressed, but we became dependent on the “easy” solutions of electric lighting and cooling available as technologies advanced. Daylighting is a design approach that has been used for thousands of years to illuminate the interior of our buildings that we are “remembering” how to use. The benefit we have now is the wide variety of technologies and products that allow designers to incorporate daylighting in new and even more effective ways.
As mentioned previously, daylighting design requires thought and deliberate design to ensure energy savings and quality of illumination within the space. There is not one specific product or technology that necessarily accomplishes this without a deliberate design. The design community, owners and product manufacturers must all work together to realize a successful design. We focus on providing information and education to the design and owner communities to encourage them to take advantage of new products and technologies. That said, we do not advocate for or endorse any specific products. The product manufacturer community has been a key supporter of our mission and their membership assists us in providing unbiased information to the design and owner communities, and we are very grateful for that.
Many daylighting product manufacturers are knowledgeable advocates for daylighting and can be a tremendous resource for designers to learn from when starting down the daylighting path.
So, where does one start?
You start with a goal of using daylighting as a central design principle – not as an add-on feature. The next step is to basically remember you are smart and logic can take you a long way down the path. We know what type of lighting we like, we know we like a connection to the outdoors, we know that windows and electric lights introduce heat into a space. Take what you know and start talking to your design team and set specific goals to help you move towards you design goals. Then, find resources, trainings, and talk to others to advance your education about energy efficient daylighting design. Visit the Daylighting Collaborative at www.daylighting.org – we are here to help.
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