First off I have a slight confusion about whether library stacks should be considered non regularly occupied area or a regularly occupied area with movable furniture.
If the stacks are not bolted down but would still require staff to move them would they be considered movable furniture. Also would the area under them then be regularly occupied because the use of that area is thus flexible. The concern being that the library will eventually move away from books on shelves and utilize the space differently. So would this area then be regularly occupied with movable furniture that is not modeled and does not impact the simulation. I suppose the situation is similar to an open plan office with system furniture that could be reconfigured by building staff over time.
On the other hand if we are concerned only with the current appearance of the space this would be unoccupied given the category space matrix. But should the geometry of the stacks be included in the simulation in order to influence the daylight penetration into the rest of the space. Similarly would they be present for 8.2 views calculations.
I would imagine that this is a judgement call on using the prescribed usage or constructing a narrative to describe the design intentions. If anyone has had experience with this any advice would be much appreciated.
TODD REED
Energy Program SpecialistPA DMVA
LEEDuser Expert
890 thumbs up
March 31, 2016 - 1:18 pm
Andrew,
It really is a judgement call, but best practice would be to include them. We include the stacks in our daylight simulations. We also include as much of the movable and fixed furniture in our sims. It is how the space is going to be used, so that's what we want to see. Interior designers can be helpful or detrimental to your daylighting strategies. It is best to have them part of the early discussions in regards to furniture layout and material and color selections. I have seen on more than one occasion where a space was designed to be well daylit, that did not consider any furniture or colors, get ruined by color and furniture selection that basically negated all the daylighting strategies.
All the projects that we have submitted that included a library, we have kept the stacks in the calculations and kept them included in the overall regularly occupied area. The main reason is that we design the space so that the stack area would also be daylighted. The key is that you design the space to meet your required performance. So if you want it to be daylit, you design it to be daylit. If you design and then see how it works, then you become reactive instead of proactive and then you begin to look at how you exlcude things. .
Technically, if they are not permanently fixed, then they can be excluded, but the area they would occupy is considered regularly occupied and would have to meet the daylight requirements.
With EQc8.2, we orientate the stacks so that they are perpendicular to the window wall. This helps with daylight penetration and views.