Sustainable Strategies For Lighting Systems.

            There are many direct and indirect benefits to incorporating sustainable lighting systems into a design. Increasing the amount of daylight in a room can increase productivity and overall well being of a person as well as reducing the need to consume energy related to electrical lighting. However to reach the optimal lighting system one needs to incorporate both natural and electrical systems.

Daylight:

            Daylight, rather than direct sunlight, is the most desirable source of light. Daylight is a soft, indirect, diffused light that avoids glare, harsh shadows, and heat gain. One of the most effective approaches to integrate daylight into a design is daylight harvesting. Daylight harvesting is locating a site that can provide optimum daylight, including latitude, topography, trees, and adjacent buildings. To increase daylight into building the building should be narrow to allow daylight to penetrate as many rooms as possible. Windows should be located on the south side of a building, followed by the north side. This placement of windows will allow a building to receive the highest quality of light through out the year and will prevent the building to be hit by the sunrise and set which can increase a undesirable solar heat gain. Windows can be located on either the side of the house or the top of the house. Windows on the top of a hose or skylights can help provide a more an even distribution and continuous source of daylight. Windows on the side of a house should be deeply recessed and placed in a bilateral arrangement, or across from one another. Daylight should be controllable to increase comfort in a room and decrease glare and solar heat gain. Internal devices like blinds, fabrics, or skylight tension systems can be used to control sunlight. Outdoor devices like overhangs, fins, louvers, and double skin systems can be used to control daylight from the exterior of a building.

Electrical sources:

            The main goal of a sustainable design in lighting is to design a lighting system that works in unity with the variability of daylight. It is first important to understand what will tasks will be done in a room to better determine what kind of light will be needed. To incorporate sustainability into electrical lighting systems ones should routinely clean and relamp electoral light sources, research sustainable lamps, and place lamps in a way that will contribute positively to a room. Some sustainable lamps include fluorescent, high-intensity discharge, and light-emitting diodes (LEDS) or organic light emitting diodes (OLED). LED and OLED are the most effective and efficient. Placement of the light is also important and can affect the quantity of illumination needed within an area and contributes to the overall user satisfaction. Overall it is important to integrate both natural daylight and electrical light to allow a building to perform in a usable way.

*Information received from:,Sustainable design for interior environments . (2nd ed.). Fairchild Books.