Illuminance Level in the Urban Fabric and in the Room

The decisions made on the urban planning level could influence the building design at later stages. Many studies have shown that the utilisation of daylight in buildings would result in significant savings in electricity consumption for lighting, while creating a higher quality indoor environment. The surroundings of a building have a great influence on the indoor environment of that building. A major factor is the shading that the surrounding buildings could provide, blocking and diminishing the available amount of daylight in nearby buildings. This paper reports a study that combine the effect of the exterior illuminance levels on fac¸ades with the interior illuminance levels on the working plane. The paper also explains an easy to use tool (EvUrbanplan) developed by the authors, which was applied to their findings in the early stages of urban planning to ensure daylight optimisation in the buildings.