A review of daylighting strategies in schools: State of the art and expected future trends

Abstract

The study of daylight conditions within educational buildings has been a topic of interest since the nineteenth century in western countries, and European ones in particular. Although it has been argued that providing a view outside-or even using daylight instead of more stable and manageable artificial light-could reduce students' performance without providing a pleasant and healthy environment, nowadays it seems that a large consensus upon the need to design well daylit spaces is being reached. This paper reviews how the research community has tackled the task of understanding and solving the complex relationships amongst local climate, users' needs and design constraints in school buildings by showing the different approaches used and technological solutions suggested. The reported case studies, based either on experimental measurements or on simulations, highlight the need of a comprehensive approach to the topic to fully understand the non-trivial requirements of a daylit educational environment.