Improvement of the psychological lighting effect assessment in the environmental building rating systems

Abstract

Green Architecture is not only about the way of controlling the resources consumption within sustainable limits, but it also emphasizes the positive effect on the different human requirements including his physiological sides. People spend a lot of time indoors under artificial lighting that usually lacks the dynamism and biological effect of daylight. Dynamic lighting, as an application of circadian lighting, has been used and studied in several buildings’ functions with different scenarios to achieve better human performance and wellbeing. This article shed a light on the importance and the way of including the circadian lighting effects within the globally-concerned Environmental Building Rating Systems (EBRSs); to advance more steps towards the Green Architecture goals when assessing buildings. Then, it proposed the use of qualitative metrics such as a linked Kano model questionnaire to the EBRSs besides their quantitative metrics; to ensure the proper lighting characteristics and the achievement of the users’ desired satisfaction and wellbeing by more accurate and creditable results. Then, case studies were used to prove the importance of using the proposed qualitative metric within the EBRSs.