This video has been made free to view for all. It’s time for a new approach to daylighting design. Current daylighting strategies, employed on virtually every green building, are leftover, inappropriate, concepts from a bygone era of high lighting power density. Standard daylighting practices frequently fail to deliver promised energy savings and are trouble prone. The true benefits of daylighting and views are far more related to their positive impact on human well being, health, and productivity.

The rapid evolution of led lighting, coupled with ever more sophisticated lighting controls, has led to a situation in which the reputed energy saving claims of daylighting are groundless and misleading. Design solutions such as clerestories and skylights that made sense when electric lighting required 2.5 watts per square foot are out of step with electric lighting design that may achieve an efficacy of at 0.25 watts per square foot in the not too distant future. Simply put, there is so little energy to displace in state of the art electric lighting that the return on investment for the construction of daylighting specific forms may be longer than the useful life of the building.

Using sophisticated energy and daylight modelling, the presentation will expose the truth about the energy impacts of typical daylighting strategies. It will cover windows, clerestories, skylights and other daylighting devices. Extending the analysis further, the presentation will examine the potential return on investment for these same design approaches for a variety of non-residential building types.

Once a more comprehensive and forward looking understanding of the energy impacts of daylighting has been established, the presenters will propose new and alternate design solutions for the future. These design concepts will focus on the potential of daylighting and views to enhance indoor environmental quality and occupant satisfaction. Emphasizing views of both the ground and the sky, and providing relatively bright, low glare, diffuse illumination will be primary objectives of these proposed solutions.

Audience members will leave with an entirely new perspective on the future of daylighting design, and they will be equipped with the tools to pursue their own design solutions.

Learning Objectives:   

• Upon completion, participant will be able to describe the evolution and importance of lighting power density, as well as the technologies that have driven it.
• Upon completion, participant will be able to describe the evolution of Daylighting design and strategies, and how those have impacted energy efficiency in buildings.
• Upon completion, participant will be able to describe the complex inter-relationship between Daylighting and building energy performance.
• Upon completion, participant will be able to design new building projects that maximize energy efficiency and daylighting for occupant well-being.

Speaker Bios:

Sukreet Singh is the Director of Energy Analytics for Cuningham Group Architecture. He leads the cutting edge research and analysis for high performance integrated design and techniques from early concept to the project document stage. He specializes in lighting, day-lighting, energy modeling, airflow and computational fluid dynamics which have been implemented as an inherent part of Cuningham Group’s design workflow. Sukreet has a background in both Architecture and Engineering and has experience working on different projects types and climate zones. He has received several national and international awards, is author of NZE book and has presented at numerous prestigious conferences.

Paul C. Hutton, FAIA, LEED Fellow, is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Cuningham Group Architecture.  He has dedicated his 40 year career to the integration of sustainability and design excellence.  In addition to his duties at the firm, he has been active in many roles with the AIA, served as a judge in the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, administered the Governors Energy Office High Performance Building Program, moderated the 2030 Challenge professional series, and taught at the University of Colorado Architecture School for nearly two decades.  He lives on a nearly Net Zero Energy ranch south of Denver with his wife, dog, and free range chickens.