Comfort and well-being

Why dynamic solar shading

Maximizing comfort and well-being

The positive effects of dynamic solar shading enable an indoor climate where visual comfort, thermal comfort, and day lighting is maximized. This in turn leads to improved health, well-being and productivity.

Visual comfort

A dynamic solar shading solution will prevent too high visual contrast and severe glare from occuring.

The relation between focus area and surroundings in the room should aim to stay within the 1:3:10 range.

To fully harvest the benefits of day light it needs to be controlled

It is crucial to create indoor environments avoiding:

Too high visual contrast
Severe glare caused by direct sunlight falling on objects with high exterior luminance values may disrupt work and can even cause physiological disorders.

A dynamic solar shading solution will prevent these situations from occuring, ensuring that your working or living environment will have the optimal balance between natural day light and visual comfort.

Several studies have proven the importance of visual comfort, some of our favorites are listed below:

3.75% median productivity increase [CMU]
20 to 25% less health complaints [Hartkopf]
15% reduced absenteeism [Thayer]
10 to 25% better performance on test of mental function [Heshong]
20 to 26% faster progress of students [Heshong]

Thermal comfort

Dynamic solar shading supports the management of the indoor climate in an environmentally friendly manner, leading to improved thermal comfort for the building's occupants.

The graph above visualizes the relative performance (of an office worker for example) and the indoor air temperature.

Dynamic solar shading improves thermal comfort

By intelligent management of the solar shading, utilizing the solar shading devices in an intelligent manner, utilizing dynamic cooling and heating strategies, our solutions support the management of indoor temperature in an environmentally friendly manner.

Below you will find reasons highlighting the importance of a correctly managed indoor temperature:

Indoor temperature can affect the performance of office tasks, the student in the class room, or the recuperation of a patient in a hospital ward
Too high/too low can each deteriorate performance and well-being
Ideal temperature is often considered to be around 22°C
High indoor temperatures increase prevalence of sick building syndrome
Low temperature increase occupants sensitivity to draughts

People spend about 90 percent of their time indoors...

90 %

So when we are dazzled, we lack natural light or the temperature is not adapted to our needs. It causes dissatisfaction and make us less effective in our daily tasks.

Day lighting

Well-being, and cognitive performance improvements are two positive effects of natural sunlight found in studies of schools and offices.

Enough natural daylight every morning is vital for resetting our circadian rhythm , shifting between Cortisol and Melatonin as we otherwise will experience a light version of “jet-lag” with a negative effect on our well being.

An amazing source to well-being!

Natural sunlight has proven to be an amazing source of well-being. Studies show benefits in schools where grades have improved and in offices with higher productivity and lower absenteeism rates. The UV radiation is vital for our bodies to create vitamin D and sunlight resets our biological clock every day - the balance between cortisol and melatonin.

Where does dynamic solar shading come into the picture? Solar shading is an important enabler of day lighting as it controls the flow of both direct solar radiation and diffuse radiation.

There is no artificial full spectrum source of light that approaches the luminous efficiency of natural daylight, in other words - we need the real thing!

Sunlight is free, and by reducing the use of artificial lighting it allows energy savings. Artificial lighting can amount to 35% of the running energy costs in a building... (Source: World Green Build Council 2014)