Adapting the residential daylight score for arid, hot, and humid climates

Abstract

Access to direct light is often considered a desirable quality in residential architecture. A novel day lighting performance metric called the Residential Daylight Score (RDS) has been suggested for cold and temperate climates to monitor diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in both daylight and access to direct light. However, direct light can significantly influence heating and cooling loads, and more research that correlates direct light with its thermal contributions is needed to make daylighting recommendations for warmer climates. As of now, residential daylight evaluation remains difficult in arid, hot, and humid climates, in which the effect of direct light on cooling loads is the largest. The authors juxtapose access to direct light with thermal and daylighting contributions across 14 different climate zones. The authors then propose a climate-based schema that considers thermal implications of daylight in residential architecture to adapt the RDS for use in warmer climates.