Lighting

About Lighting

Welcome! The Daylighting/Lighting CX provides guidance for on how to better utilize daylighting and lighting strategies and technologies to assist with the design and construction of high performance sustainable and energy efficient buildings. Planners, designers and customers are then better enabled to make informed decisions on incorporating design and sustainability features in projects which both improves building performance and improves indoor environmental quality. For questions or comments, please email Lighting@usace.army.mil. DAYLIGHTING Daylighting, as defined by Whole Building Design Guide (see additional resources below) is the controlled admission of natural light; direct sunlight and diffuse sky lighting - into a building to reduce electric lighting and saving energy. By providing a direct link to the dynamic and perpetually evolving patterns of the outdoor illumination, daylighting helps create a visually stimulating and productive environment for building occupants, while reducing as much as one-third of the building energy costs. ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING Electric lighting fixtures are designed and used to meet the lighting requirements at any given time. Artificial lighting can take many different forms through the application of direct lighting, indirect lighting and be achieved through a near countless options. DAYLIGHTING AND ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING SIMULATIONS Different tasks have an associated illumination requirement to them, in order to identify if a given design has met the requirement a computer modeling simulation is built to determine if a design has successfully met the requirements. INDUSTRY STANDARDS FOR ILLUMINATION REQUIREMENTS In order to determine the appropriate illumination values, industry standards is to utilize Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) comprehensive Handbook along with supplemental Recommended Practice Guides that provide tables of appropriate illuminance data. Additional requirements include that the regulating energy code will be used and the Lighting Power Density Limits are defined.

Research & Services

The mission of the Lighting Center of Expertise in Sustainability to provide education and guidance on how to better design and analyze daylighting and artificial modeling to develop high performance sustainable and energy efficient buildings. When lighting design is considered at the beginning of the design phase it will help the design team identify the respective building components, systems and equipment necessary to achieve the specified energy reduction targets.

The Lighting CXS provides technical guidance on understanding energy model inputs to help achieve high performance sustainable and energy efficient buildings. By developing accurate models and analysis to simulate a building's energy usage and understanding the parameters required for the model, designers and stakeholders can make informed decisions on design and sustainability features to be incorporated in projects.

Team members of the Lighting-CXS are available to provide support to Project Delivery Teams (PDT) on a reimbursable basis. Support to PDTs includes but is not limited to:

Technical consultation on projects (Example: Reviewing lighting calculations and simulations) Supporting tasks (Example: Assist with specification development) Design as PDT members (Example: Serve as designer of record) Provide training to PDT members (Example: Conduct webinar on specific topic) Investigations of lighting or window construction defects and potential corrections