Project Description
Providing daylight to workplaces can have multiple benefits such as improved work productivity, reduced thermal loads and energy consumption. Daylight can have physiological and psychological influence on human, which has a direct impact on their well-being. It can increase the productivity of the occupants and positively impact the finance of organizations, as well. The rapid progress of companies like Uber, eBay, and Freelancer.com has given people the opportunity to work part-time or do side-hustle. Essentially, these workers have become part of the global gig economy which offers greater flexibility than traditional jobs. The popularity of freelancing has increased in the past few years as there were 4.1 million freelancers in Australia according to a study held on 2015 (https://gradaustralia.com.au). In 2020, working system has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, making many people unemployed. Unemployment rate in Australia jumped to 6.2% due to Covid-19 as 600,000 jobs lost (https://www.theguardian.com), for instance. Thus, a large number of people started seeking freelance jobs and many employees were forced to work from home to protect themselves from this lethal virus. Companies tried to provide suitable internet connection, equipment, and the ability for video call, online meetings, etc. to bring the office to their employees’ home and provide them with the capability of working remotely during this time. However, daylight impact is the missing ring in this chain. Studies show that workers’ productivity, subjective mood, attention, cognitive performance and physical activity increases with the improvement of day-light quality (Abdou, Ossama A, 1997). A multitude of surveys have also revealed that daylight impacts the health and performance of children in schools, indicating improvement in the rate of natural light results in students’ health, satisfaction, attention, and consequently performance (Shishegar, N., & Boubekri, M, 2016). This project tries to find an appropriate and logical way for utilizing the suitable daylight among people and freelancers which they have/prefer to work from home in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Louvres are a system designed to capture the sunlight entering into the front part of a room and redirect it towards the back. The angle of the louvres increases or decreases the amount of light at the room. The amount of light in an area can be measured using a light meter (or Lux meter). It measures the amount of light falling onto a surface, which is known as the illuminance of that surface. It is recommended by AS1680–Interior Lighting that the illuminance levels for different types of work areas are as: 160 Lux for simple activities, 240 Lux for ordinary tasks, 400 Lux for moderately difficult activities, 600 Lux for difficult tasks, and 800 Lux for very difficult activities. Thus, the best illuminance for working is from 240 Lux to 600 Lux and this range is suitable for most of activities including working with computers, reading, writing and drawing. For this research, Autodesk Revit 2020 was used to design a north-facing study-room, as houses with a northern orientation are ideal in Australia. Window dimensions were considered based on a project performed by Hashemi.A in 2014. The angle of the window louvres was considered for the parametric study to have appropriate natural light for various activities through a year. Each day was divided into two time categories: 8 am to 12 pm and 12 pm to 5 pm. The lighting properties of the project were simulated for year 2019 in Sydney: (Global Horizontal (GHI), Direct Normal (DNI), and Diffuse Horizontal (DHI) where: Global Horizontal (GHI) = Direct Normal (DNI) X cos(θ) + Diffuse Horizontal (DHI)) All the louvre angles (0-90 degrees) were tested and analysed by Insight 360 software (the analysis of the day 21st of each month are presented on the sheet) to explore the best angle for each interval of a day. A light-view of the room with furniture was rendered on Enscape render engine version 2.52 and compared with the insight 360 analysis for verification of results. The findings of both methods matched with each other (one light-view image is presented on the sheet as an example). In conclusion, the suitable louvre angles to obtain the maximum area of the work-place with illuminance between 240 Lux to 600 Lux (the best illuminance for working) are presented. This favourable angle of louvres offers the best illuminance for employees and students, who intend to work remotely from home, and this is very important for especial occasions such as prevalence of pandemic diseases (COVID-19, Influenza, etc.). Efficient amount of lighting in their rooms not only increases their work productivity and protect their mental health, but also reduces energy consumption especially electricity. This reduction in their bills helps families financially, particularly during facing with hard situations as we all experienced in 2020.