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B. Geebelen:
"Daylight Availability Prediction in the early stages of the building desidn process";
Supervisor, Reviewer: E. Aernoudt, H. Neuckermans, A. De Herde, A. Mahdavi, M. van der Voorden, G. Vermeir, J. Willems; Department Architectuur, Stedenbouw En Ruimtelijke Ordening, KU Leuven, 2003; oral examination: 2003-05.

The energy crisis of the 1970s instilled a new energy consciousness in building designers. Over the past few years daylighting has emerged as a new potential source of energy savings. The term "daylighting" refers to the deliberate use of the available daylight for replacing or complementing the artificial lighting in a building with the purpose of achieving energy savings. This dissertation examines the place of daylighting in the building process. A study of prior research and a survey among practicioners reveal that lighting and daylighting play an active part in early design decisions, but that these decisions are rearely substantiated with simulation. This is in sharp contrast with the great importance of conceptual decisions. The dissertation then investigates possible solutions for this discrepancy. These pertain to both the design process and the available evaluation tools for daylighting. A detailed study of the different aspects of lighting in buildings reveals that contemporary simulation tools are not capable of correctly linking lighting and thermal simulation. A new daylight-availability prediciton method is therefore developed that allows such a link and thus more accurate dynamic simulations for the prediction of daylight availability and energy consumption.

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