TOPICAL STUDY

AAR 635
Research Area : Environmental Design
Research Topic : The Importance of Daylighting Strategy in
Bioclimatic And Sustainable design on
Building Efficiency in Office Building
Name : Azizul Hairil Syukri Bin Sabri
ID No. : 2016679104
Group : AP2436A
Supervisor’s Name : Madam Tengku Anis Qorihah
 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study

Bioclimatic design can be fine as a design style of a building and spaces that based on
local climates and aim to provide thermal and visual comfort while Sustainable or green
design is a design style that seeks to reduce the negative impact of building to the
environment. Briefly put, these design styles are used to improve the efficiency of the
building. It is becoming obvious that as the growth of population and multiple erections
of new buildings and cities, energy consumption of these cities growth exponentially.
Thus, ‘Sustainable and eco-friendly architecture is one of the main aims that humans for
creating a better life have made as the ultimate model for all their activities. For this
reason, moving towards a greener architecture is well-thought-out the main goal of the
present architecture of our time.’ (Mahdavinejad, Zia, Larki, Ghanavati, & Elmi, 2014)
Hence, it is fundamental for us to implement these design styles to improve the efficiency
of the building while also reducing the negative effect of the building on the environment.

To understand better of these design style, These design styles apply two design
strategies which consist of active design strategies and passive design strategies. Active
design strategies is a strategy that use purchased energy to keep the building comfortable.
These strategies include forced-air HVAC systems, heat pumps, radiant panels or chilled
beams, and electric lights. To further enhance the energy efficiency of the building, active
design strategies use low energy consumption electric light and sustainable materials. For
example, a fluorescent lamp, timber and reuse materials. On the contrary, Passive design
strategies use ambient energy sources instead of purchased energy like electricity or
natural gas. These strategies include daylighting, natural ventilation, and solar energy.
Passive design strategies are used to maximizing the energy efficiency by the actual
design and construction itself. Rodriguez-Ubinas (2014) claimed that the potential energy
saving through an optimized design process (passive design strategies), minimizing the
heating and cooling loads, is usually more influential than the use of innovative HVAC
solutions (active design strategies).

With the invention of fluorescent lamp that provides lower cost and low heat output of
artificial light, the factor of daylighting has long been forgotten. Nevertheless, daylighting
should not be considered trivial matter as daylighting is considered one of the main
elements in space and building due to the fact it increases the productivity, health and
 comfort of the occupants, it also has a strong effect on psychological and physical
wellbeing (Kleindienst & Andersen, 2009) However, the main significant of daylighting
is that its targets minimizing energy consumption and comfort in the building use natural
lighting as one of the passive design strategies factor. The use of daylight with the
integration of artificial light is an essential step to achieve and with proper daylight
evaluation can reduce energy consumption for lighting. (Barbara Gherri, 2017). This
factor should be the focal point in designing to satisfy the Green Building Index(GBI) by
Malaysian Standard in terms of Energy Efficiency.

1.2 Problem Statement

As stated before, bioclimatic and sustainable design aim to increase energy efficiency of
the building, there are multiple strategies that can be used to realize these design styles
ranging from using low energy consumption electrical system, sustainable and reuse
material, natural ventilation and heating. However, most practitioners tend to overlook
daylighting factor in design process. This oversight may be the shortcoming of the
building because daylighting is important for energy saving of the building and comfort
of the occupant. Lack of natural daylighting cause the energy consumption of the building
in terms of lighting increase. Barbara Gherri (2017) stated that daylighting can replace up
to 50% of energy used in a building.

Furthermore, There is some debate exist arguing that certain bioclimatic and sustainable
design building does not work as expected during occupants evaluation. This issue occurs
because of incomprehensive implementation of design style during design process.
Occurrence of this issue will hinder the main objective of the design style which is energy
efficiency. Shaviv (2008) found that the San Francisco Federal Building which was
expected to obtained Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum
but did not pass the accreditation due to incomprehensive design process for example lack
of internal climate control in the building.

1.3 Research Question

Based on the following problem statement mentioned, the following questions are
constructed:
  Why certain bioclimatic and sustainable design does not work as expected?
 What is the significance of daylighting factor in the office building?
 How daylighting factor reduce the energy consumption of a building??

1.4 Research Aim

Henceforth, the aim of the study is to investigate the importance of daylighting strategies
in bioclimatic and sustainable design on building efficiency in an office building.

1.5 Research Objective

The following objectives should be followed:
 To identify the importance of daylighting factor to the occupants of a building.
 To compare the outcome data of daylighting factor between bioclimatic,
sustainable design building and typical building.
 To generate a comprehensive data of daylighting affecting the building efficiency.

1.6 Research Methodology

In order to collect valuable and precise data, two data collection methods are chosen:
 Comparative analysis is use to identify and compare the daylighting factor to
building efficiency between bioclimatic, sustainable design office building and
typical office building.
 Questionnaire method is also used to give further insight on building efficiency in
terms of daylighting and the significance of it.

To further understand bioclimatic and sustainable design style, a case study research
design will be use. The buildings for this case study are Mesiniaga building and Diamond
building thoroughly.

1.7 Significance of the Study

The main significance of this study is that it will provide significant insight on
daylighting factor to the building. In addition, This study will give additional info to
improve on the bioclimatic and sustainable design style to further enhance the impact. It
will also help expose the importance of daylighting to reduce the energy consumption of
the building to the public and practitioner.
1.8 Scope and Limitation of Study
This study will be focus primarily on bioclimatic and sustainable design building at
Selangor and Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya. The type of building that has been chosen
to be case study will only be limited to office building only.In addition, As this study
focus on studying the building efficiency, the project team specifically the architect and
the occupants of the building will be the main participant of the study.

REFERENCES.

Barbara Gherri. (2017). Daylighting Strategies: Building’s Sustainability and Energy

Efficiency. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 7(7), 805–811.
https://doi.org/10.17265/1934-7359/2013.07.004

Kleindienst, S. A., & Andersen, M. (2009). Adaptation of daylight glare problem to dynamic
metrics in a computational setting. In Proceedings of Lux Europa 2009 – 11th European
Lighting Conference.

Mahdavinejad, M., Zia, A., Larki, A. N., Ghanavati, S., & Elmi, N. (2014). Dilemma of green
and pseudo green architecture based on LEED norms in case of developing countries.
International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsbe.2014.06.003

Rodriguez-Ubinas, E., Montero, C., Porteros, M., Vega, S., Navarro, I., Castillo-Cagigal, M.,
… Gutiérrez, A. (2014). Passive design strategies and performance of Net Energy Plus
Houses. Energy and Buildings. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.03.074

Shaviv, E. (2008). Passive and low energy architecture (PLEA) vs green architecture
(LEED). In Proceedings of 25th International PLEA Conference.