The Spring 2006 Daylight Design Course (Design198), taught by Dr. Papamichael, focused on introducing students to daylight design considerations. The objective of the class was to help students learn how to evaluate daylight performance in buildings and how to develop design strategies for performance improvements.

Evaluation of Glare Potential using State-of-the-art Software Analysis of Digital Images

Course Overview:
To increase the course’s effectiveness, Dr. Papamichael worked with Bill Starr and Gary Dahl from the UC Davis Architects and Engineers Office to offer students the opportunity to get involved in a real world project.

UC Davis is committed to promoting energy efficiency and sustainability in all campus buildings and is currently considering the renovation of many laboratory and office spaces.  Capitalizing on this opportunity, Dr. Papamichael made arrangements to have the Daylighting Design class play the role of a daylighting consulting firm with UC Davis playing the role of the client.

A laboratory and an office space at Robbins Hall were vacant and made available as test beds for daylight performance evaluation and retrofit design ideas.  The two spaces are representative in size and arrangement of laboratory and office spaces throughout the UC Davis campus.

Sample Student Project: Sharlene Lee, Jennifer Hall, Lam Yip, Jay Tang. Actual space (above) and scale model (below) photographed under the same daylight conditions.

Class Structure & Activities:
The students were grouped in 7 teams, 4 focusing on laboratory spaces and 3 on office spaces.  During the quarter, students engaged in hands-on experience applying and testing the lecture concepts in the Robbins Hall spaces.

At the end of Spring Quarter, students had completed detailed evaluations of the Robbins Hall laboratory and office spaces, using state-of-the-art methods and tools, such as illuminance and luminance meters, luminance mapping cameras, as well as software and physical scale models.

Both space types were analyzed with respect to illuminance and luminance distributions, considering key locations and view directions throughout the year, as well as four window orientations (North, East, South and West) to help address campus-wide consideration of daylight performance.

UC Davis students: Victor Fernandez and Cristina Perdomo working on a scale model at CLTC’s heliodon to understand direct solar penetration for different orientations and times of the year		July 5 presentation of the class work to the UC Davis project managers at the UC Davis Architects & Engineers Office

Class presentations:
At the end of the Spring Quarter students gave presentations to Bill Starr and Gary Dahl on their findings related to evaluating the daylight performance of the actual Robbins Hall spaces, addressing the issue of direct solar penetration for various orientations and suggesting strategies for improving daylight performance in terms of quantities and qualities.

Bill Starr and Gary Dahl were very impressed by the depth of the analyses and the effectiveness of the presentations.  They made arrangements for a collective presentation of the class work at a UC Davis Project Managers meeting, which took place on July 5.