312: Analysis of Urban Occupation X Daylighting Availability Using the Preferable Sky Window Parameter

The lack of an urban planning that takes into account bioclimatic issues has produced dense urban areas with few possibilities for the use of natural resources. Insolation and daylight in the built environment depend on surrounding conditions: very dense urban areas covered with tall buildings usually result in spaces with restricted solar radiation and daylight access. However, still there are no worldwide accepted criteria parameters or patterns in order to control and ensure the democratic access to natural resources, such as natural ventilation, solar radiation, daylight, etc. The present proposal consists in analyzing the illumination behavior in a naturally illuminated indoor environment, which is exposed to different patterns of occupation and configuration of the urban land. The applied method presents an innovative parameter used to characterize the sky vault daylighting potential denominated Preferable Sky Window (PSW). The PSW area was divided in 9 parts and each one was analyzed separately, according to the illuminances it produced in the internal room. Afterwards, several hypothetical scenarios were simulated. These combined different urban occupation and obstruction contexts. The data regarding the illumination levels was obtained through computer simulations using the Apolux software, specially adapted for this study. The most favorable scenarios regarding daylight admission and distribution were those which the PSW was visible through vertical strips, that is, in terms of the built mass, they are associated to the gaps between buildings instead of their heights. The results particularly showed a possible verticalization of the cities by controlling the density of the constructions, lateral and frontal distances between buildings combined with the variation of the building heights. One of the major contributions of this study is the use of urban land occupation pattern indicators, based on objective criteria of daylighting availability.