Natural lighting in hospital environments

comparative analysis of EN 17.037:2018 and LM-83-12 methods

Abstract

In healthcare buildings, access, quality and quantity of exposure to daylight can influence the well-being of patients and staff.  To compare the criteria for analysis of daylight availability of EN 17.037:2018 and LM-83-12, in hospitalization spaces, the research methodology took as a case study the Medical Clinic wing of a university hospital. To this end, the analysis of daylighting was performed through computer simulations developed with the ClimateStudio plugin. The overall results of the simulations indicated that, in the case study, the requirements of EN 17.037:2018 proved to be significantly more restrictive than the requirements of LM-83-12. One of the restrictions verified is the consideration by EN 17.037 of all daylight hours per day while LM-83 evaluates performance for 10 hours per day. Another restriction, more important, refers to the need for compliance by EN 17.037 of the sDA_100/50% metric in 95% of the area of the spaces analyzed. Only the North American method presented results considered satisfactory in the general evaluation, since it considers only the sDA metric_300/50% and for an area of 55% of the environment as a minimum. Other barriers identified to meet the criteria of availability of daylight are associated with the materials and architecture of the building. It is concluded that the appropriate location and the adequate sizing and orientation of the openings of the environments that need natural lighting are determinant for the fulfillment of the criteria, regardless of the evaluation method adopted.