Statistical Methods Applied to Optimize Perforated Façade Design for Daylight Availability

Abstract

Perforated solar screens (PSS) are important to consider in building façade design because of their contribution to sustainability through daylighting. PSS façade design requires the consideration of many potential design alternatives that involve a large number of simulations. This paper presents a methodology in which the orthogonal and listing methods are integrated to predict a set of optimum PSS design variables to enhance the daylight availability in office buildings located in Seville, Spain. An orthogonal array was selected to perform a transverse comparison of the simulation factors mean effects and to find their statistical significance. Then, a standard level was fixed and used for further detailed analysis of a greater number of factor levels, measuring their daylighting contributions. The main advantage of the integrated method is the reduction of the number of simulations from 720 to 32, so the model could save considerable time and would help designers make early-design-stage decisions. With the optimization, the actual daylit area was increased by 29–57% and the overlit area was reduced by 36–57% relative to reference models with no PSS.