ABSTRACT
Successful daylight from the side begins with maintaining a relationship between window head height and section depth, ideally a maximum of a 2:1 ratio, in buildings with traditional floor to ceiling heights, about a 20'-25' section depth. Section depths beyond this have high contrast and are perceived as glaring. First, section depths can be kept narrow to ensure both daylight performance and relative uniformity. A second source of daylight can be added to provide supplemental illumination. For both energy and social equity reasons, open office areas should be the priority for the provision of daylight. Shared open office areas provide an opportunity for higher lighting power savings from daylight responsive controls than private offices. Despite the re-lites in the wall, the perimeter private offices block nearly all the daylight and view access to the core open offices and cause glare from contrast. Partitions are added, and those that are perpendicular to daylight sources extend higher for visual and acoustic privacy.
