Solar access potential affected by urban planning and building design – A parametric study in the urban context
(2020) AEBM01 20201Division of Energy and Building Design
Department of Architecture and Built Environment
- Abstract
- In the initial stage of planning, considering the solar impact of urban layout on the building can effectively avoid some irreversible design issues, improve the indoor environment, and reduce energy demand. The typical architectural models of three representative cities (Copenhagen, Berlin and Hong Kong) were selected as the analysis cases in this study. By analysing several sunlight and solar metrics via Grasshopper in Rhino, at first, we can know if they meet local regulations. Those mentioned metrics included annual solar irradiation, heating season irradiation, vertical illuminance, sun hour, vertical daylight factor, vertical sky component and shadow cast aerial view. Then a few urban parameters with greater influence on passive and... (More)
- In the initial stage of planning, considering the solar impact of urban layout on the building can effectively avoid some irreversible design issues, improve the indoor environment, and reduce energy demand. The typical architectural models of three representative cities (Copenhagen, Berlin and Hong Kong) were selected as the analysis cases in this study. By analysing several sunlight and solar metrics via Grasshopper in Rhino, at first, we can know if they meet local regulations. Those mentioned metrics included annual solar irradiation, heating season irradiation, vertical illuminance, sun hour, vertical daylight factor, vertical sky component and shadow cast aerial view. Then a few urban parameters with greater influence on passive and active solar potential were selected to carry out a parametric study. By comparing the results, we can know how building geometry and urban layout affect the solar potential and which parameter contributes the most in these three cities. Through this research, we can provide suggestions to urban planners or architects that help them make decisions in the early stage of city planning about passive and active solar potential considering building shape, density, roof inclination and material of building envelope. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- As the urban population continues to grow at a high speed, the situation of urban space utilization has become increasingly tense. However, architects in many cities only consider the problem of high population density during the early stage, which means they often ignore the daylight conditions in buildings, streets or city gardens.
In the early stages of urban planning, many details of the building have not been determined, including the location, size and materials of the windows, which have a great impact on lighting performance. Therefore, before building design, how to use outdoor daylight metrics to analyse daylight performance is critical.
The main cases of this study are the buildings in three representative cities. Due to... (More) - As the urban population continues to grow at a high speed, the situation of urban space utilization has become increasingly tense. However, architects in many cities only consider the problem of high population density during the early stage, which means they often ignore the daylight conditions in buildings, streets or city gardens.
In the early stages of urban planning, many details of the building have not been determined, including the location, size and materials of the windows, which have a great impact on lighting performance. Therefore, before building design, how to use outdoor daylight metrics to analyse daylight performance is critical.
The main cases of this study are the buildings in three representative cities. Due to the different geographical location and daylight conditions, the simulations and analyses were based on the local building daylight standards of each city.
The first step was to analyse the outdoor daylight metrics and compare local building codes to propose improvements. These metrics include annual solar irradiation, heating season irradiation, vertical illuminance, sun hours, vertical daylight factor vertical sky component and shadow cast analysis.
In addition, in order to study the influence of different building forms on daylight performance of the building, a comprehensive parametric study was carried out. The variables are the urban parameters that have an influence on the solar potential. From the results, the author had a preliminary understanding of how the geometry and urban layout of buildings in the same city affect solar conditions, and which parameter had the greatest impact on each city. After further comparing the results of these three cities, some conclusions were drawn, which apply to similar urban situations.
The entire study was completed using simulation tools: Honeybee and Ladybug via Grasshopper plug-in of Rhino. Because of the necessity of reducing computational time, the building model was simplified and the simulation parameters were set to error-acceptable level, which may have had a slight adverse effect on the accuracy of the simulation.
This study shows that a relatively wider street is the most recommended for the buildings with high floor area ratio (FAR). The box-shaped building tower performed the best. For a city with a high latitude, architects can effectively improve the sun hour situation of the building envelope by reducing the floor area ratio. For cities with relatively low FAR values, even if the FAR value remains unchanged, architects can seek better sun hour results by changing the building height and footprint. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9013113
- author
- Li, Yuncong LU and Tian, Yiting LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- AEBM01 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Daylight, urban planning, solar access potential, sun hours, vertical sky component, vertical daylight illuminance, solar irradiation, parametric analysis, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hong Kong
- language
- English
- id
- 9013113
- date added to LUP
- 2020-06-05 10:53:36
- date last changed
- 2020-06-05 10:53:36
@misc{9013113,
abstract = {{In the initial stage of planning, considering the solar impact of urban layout on the building can effectively avoid some irreversible design issues, improve the indoor environment, and reduce energy demand. The typical architectural models of three representative cities (Copenhagen, Berlin and Hong Kong) were selected as the analysis cases in this study. By analysing several sunlight and solar metrics via Grasshopper in Rhino, at first, we can know if they meet local regulations. Those mentioned metrics included annual solar irradiation, heating season irradiation, vertical illuminance, sun hour, vertical daylight factor, vertical sky component and shadow cast aerial view. Then a few urban parameters with greater influence on passive and active solar potential were selected to carry out a parametric study. By comparing the results, we can know how building geometry and urban layout affect the solar potential and which parameter contributes the most in these three cities. Through this research, we can provide suggestions to urban planners or architects that help them make decisions in the early stage of city planning about passive and active solar potential considering building shape, density, roof inclination and material of building envelope.}},
author = {{Li, Yuncong and Tian, Yiting}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Solar access potential affected by urban planning and building design – A parametric study in the urban context}},
year = {{2020}},
}