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Key contribution
Saint-Gobain Glass offers a wide range of innovative glazing solutions for facades, made from sustainable materials, that vary in terms of color, neutrality, light transmittance and size to ensure that occupants benefit from adequate light levels.
Aim
To support visual acuity by setting a threshold for adequate light levels and requiring luminance to be balanced within and across indoor spaces.
Detailed requirement
Part 1: Visual Acuity for Focus
The following requirements are met at workstations or desks:
- The ambient lighting system is able to maintain an average light intensity of 215 lux [20 fc] or more.
- The ambient lighting system is zoned in independently controlled banks no larger than 46.5 m² [500 ft²] or 20% of open floor area of the room.
- If ambient light is below 300 lux [28 fc], task lights providing 300 to 500 lux [28 to 46 fc] at the work surface are available upon request.
Part 2: Brightness Management Strategies
Provide a narrative that describes strategies for maintaining luminance balance in spaces, which takes into consideration at least two of the following:
- Brightness contrasts between main rooms and ancillary spaces, such as corridors and stairwells.
- Brightness contrasts between task surfaces and immediately adjacent surfaces.
- Brightness contrasts between task surfaces and remote, nonadjacent surfaces in the same room.
- The way brightness is distributed across ceilings in a given room.
Part 3: Commercial Kitchen Lighting
The following light levels are achieved:
- Maintained average of at least 500 lux [46 fc] of lighting at countertops and other food preparation or production areas.
- Maintained average of at least 200 lux [18 fc] of lighting in dishwashing areas.
Part 4: Visual Acuity in Living Environments
In all bedrooms, bathrooms, and rooms with windows, one or more fixtures provide the following:
- Alerting lights able to provide a maintained average of 250 lux [23 fc] as measured 0.76 m [30 inches] above finished floor.
- Evening lights able to provide a maintained average of 50 lux [5 fc] as measured 0.76 m [30 inches] above finished floor.
- Lights continuously dimmable to 25%.
Part 5: Visual Acuity for Learning
The ambient lighting system at desks in classrooms for the specified age groups meet the following requirements:
- Able to maintain an average of 175 lux [16 fc] or more measured on the horizontal plane, typically 0.76 m [30 inches] above finished floor.
Part 6: Visual Acuity for Dining
The ambient lighting system at dining surfaces for the specified restaurant types meet the following requirements:
- Cafeterias: Able to maintain an average of 150 lux [14 fc] or more measured on the horizontal plane at the height of the dining surface.
- Casual dining and fast food: Able to maintain an average of 100 lux [9 fc] or more measured on the horizontal plane at the height of the dining surface.
- Fine dining: Able to maintain an average of 30 lux [3 fc] or more measured on the horizontal plane at the height of the dining surface.
See detailed requirement for Visual Lighting Design
Our contribution
When selecting glazing with regard to visual lighting criteria, it is important to consider the elements of light transmittance, glazed surface and glare control.
Part 1: Visual acuity focus
Daylight is the healthiest source of light there is. It allows building occupants to work, whether on basic tasks or the most detail-oriented ones, while removing the need for costly lighting systems. In offices, electric lighting is used for more than 60% of working hours on average. As a consequence, using greater window/glazed surfaces would easily maintain an average light intensity of 215 lux, meaning that users could turn off lights during the daytime and decrease the energy usage for lighting.
To a major trend in architecture, Saint-Gobain offers solutions to increase a glazed surface thanks to lighter fixing systems, such as SPIDER SYSTEM POINT S and POINT X, and stronger laminated glass, STADIPBUILDER, that can be used as a construction product requiring less structure but also bigger glass panes of up to 18 x 3.21 meters.
Part 2: Brightness management strategies
Buildings that take advantage of big windows and glazed facades can use natural light as a centerpiece to distribute light adequately across living spaces. Glass transparency is, by nature, a great material to create brightness contrasts between task and remote surfaces.
The coated glass range of Saint-Gobain Glass offers a large choice of products with different tones and light reflections adapted to the quest for various aesthetics for facades. These deliver a wide array of light transmittance (from 10% to 90% for VISION-LITE anti-reflective glass) allowing natural light to flood into a room throughout the day.
To manage glare control, Saint-Gobain Glass proposes the CLIMAPLUS/CLIMATOP SCREENS, double and triple-glazed units, that enable occupants to control the amount of light entering a room. The slats of the blinds can be raised, lowered and angled; the amount of permitted light can be graded from full sun to total exclusion. We also offer modern glass that controls light transmission, transparency, dewing or icing phenomenon. For instance, PRIVA-LITE is a unique solution in space management by way of its instantaneous control of opalescence (transparency and translucence) and dynamic retro projection of videos and images.
