Measurement can account for complex daylight designs but does not help inform the design process. It can only confirm compliance once the space has already been constructed. At that late phase, it may be too costly to make design changes to bring more floor area into compliance.
Measuring daylighting with handheld light meters can be time-consuming for large areas. Also, you are likely to need to defer this credit to the construction phase LEED submittal so that accurate light readings can be taken with interior walls in place.
This compliance path does not require modeling and can still help inform decisions during the design phase. However, the documentation and calculations can be complicated and time-consuming.
Simulation is the only way to account during the design phase for daylight designs that have many variables such as the use of lightshelves and light-colored interior finishes. The prescriptive compliance path (Option 2) takes into account only walls, windows, floor and ceiling areas, and the measurement path (Option 3) will not help inform design
A common misconception is that a design needs to have more glass for effective daylighting. But effective daylighting can also be achieved with smaller apertures and glazing designed for specific indirect light, located high in a space to bounce light on to a ceiling.
Prescriptive compliance paths for EAc1 (other than energy modeling) do not allow window-to-wall ratios greater than the relevant reference standard. Projects using these compliance paths are limited in the amount of allowable glazing area.
More natural light is transmitted through glazing with higher VLT values, but higher VLT values tend to correlate with higher solar heat gain coefficients (SHGC). Assess the optimal balance of these values, along with
