LOCI - Soutenance publique de thèse - Clotilde PIERSON

Discomfort glare perception from daylight: influence of the socio-environmental context

Exposure to light, and especially to daylight, has much to offer. For building's occupants, daylight has been shown to boost performance, improve sleep, increase comfort, lessen agitation, or reduce depression. For buildings, daylight enhances the aesthetics of a space and improves its energy efficiency. On one condition, though, that it does not produce visual discomfort. Developing reliable and accurate methods to evaluate visual discomfort remains a crucial step to move towards optimal daylighting design in buildings.

To date, over twenty daylight discomfort glare models have been developed. However, none of them can consistently and accurately explain the large variation between subjects' discomfort glare perception. In this context, it is hypothesized that the evaluation of discomfort glare perception from daylight in office buildings can be improved by including additional factors in the evaluation models. The main research question of the thesis is therefore to determine whether the socio-environmental context of a subject influences her/his discomfort glare perception from daylight.

The field study conducted in four socio-environmental contexts, i.e. Chile, Belgium, Japan, and Switzerland, to answer the research question is described in the thesis. The results could not provide evidence of a difference in discomfort glare perception from daylight between different socio-environmental contexts. However, there was some indications supporting the influence of three additional factors on discomfort glare perception from daylight: the glare sensitivity, the view through the window, and the air temperature.

Jury members :

• Prof. Magali Bodart (UCLouvain), supervisor
• Dr Jan Wienold (EPFL), supervisor
• Prof. Denis Zastavni (UCLouvain), chairperson
• Dr Coralie Cauwerts (UCLouvain), secretary
• Prof. Sergio Altomonte (UCLouvain)
• Prof. Werner Osterhaus (Aarhus University)

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