This CIR is written to address the application of daylight responsive controls and the appropriate ways in which areas of a building can be excluded from this Credit. There are two rooms within the project that would be considered regularly occupied spaces, however the use of daylight responsive controls would not be appropriate. Both of these spaces do have exterior walls with windows and shades. The first space is a conference room, which will be used for a variety of meetings and presentations. The room will be equipped with AV equipment and therefore will require adjusting light levels accordingly. Therefore, the proposed design includes a complex dimming system with multiple schemes to allow for the necessary AV lighting level adjustment. The lights for the room will not operate when the room is vacant. One of the base lighting schemes will be set as the default scheme to operate once occupancy is sensed. We feel that the inclusion of daylight responsive controls would interfere with the occupant-chosen dimming schemes and is thus not appropriate in this room. The second space is a conference space/cafeteria. This space also has windows with operable shades and a line voltage dimmer. This is a large room that will be used for larger company meetings/presentations and for employee lunch and break purposes. The presence of daylight responsive controls would again interfere with the ability of the occupant to dim the space to their lighting needs. In summary: 1) We are requesting clarification on the definition of "regularly occupied spaces" within LEED-CI. 2) The intent of this CIR is to see areas such as the conference/cafeteria space described above would be an area acceptable to exclude from having daylight responsive controls. This is based on the ongoing potential for the daylight controls to interfere with the room\'s function. The lack of feasibility in conjunction with an occupant controlled dimmable system.
It is not acceptable to exclude the cafeteria and conference room spaces from the requirements of EAc1.2. The USGBC defines regularly occupied spaces as "areas where workers are seated or standing as they work inside a building." Both conference rooms and cafeterias fall under this description. In the "Design Approach for Daylight-Responsive Controls" section of the LEED-CI v2.0 Reference Guide description of EAc1.2, it is made clear that lighting control systems may have to deal with the combined logic of daylighting, occupancy sensors, and timed shut-off situations. Contemporary lighting systems are capable of handling both automated functions to reduce energy usage, and manual over-ride functions to allow for specific lighting level control, when needed. Applicable Internationally.