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Lighting Quality
Illuminating Engineering Society of North America “The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) is the recognized technical authority on illumination. The Society's 100+ technical publications were developed for all lighting professionals—from lighting designers to lighting manufacturers, and lighting engineers to lighting researchers, virtually everyone involved with illumination. Included in IESNA's offerings, via its online bookstore, are lighting standards, lighting measurement documents, the IESNA Lighting Handbook, documents on office lighting, store lighting, hospital lighting, sports lighting, outdoor lighting, school lighting, church lighting, museum lighting, roadway lighting, tunnel lighting, lighting for seniors, security lighting and more. Also included on the IESNA online bookstore are lighting books published by other organizations—books like the National Electric Code are available from IESNA …” Institute for Research in Construction “Lighting research activities were initiated at IRC in 1976, and initially focused on energy efficiency. Since then, the group has grown and its range of activities has broadened. Current staff members have training in engineering, architecture, physics, electronics and psychology. A focus on energy efficiency has been maintained, with an added emphasis on the effect of lighting on people. Current projects address office lighting quality, atrium performance, automatic and manual lighting controls, daylighting, skylight design and spectral effects …” “The Light Right Consortium brings together interested parties and researchers to work toward a common goal: to use research as a basis for market transformation towards Ergonomic Lighting. Ergonomic Lighting is designed and installed in a way that considers the physical and psychological needs of people in buildings – it is quality, energy efficient, and economical. Preliminary studies show that Ergonomic Lighting can have positive effects such as improved productivity, reduced health complaints, and increased occupant satisfaction. Due to the high costs of labor, these benefits can provide compelling incentive for improving workplace lighting. As a result business owners can significantly reduce organizational costs and energy consumption at the same time …” - top - "Lighting and Productivity: Missing Link Found?” - Architectural Lighting Magazine “Lighting designers claim to provide value in many ways, one being based on the belief that lighting design influences worker satisfaction and motivation. They're right. The Light Right Consortium has completed a new study indicating that office workers appreciate quality lighting and have preferences consistent with prior research in this area. In the study, subjects demonstrated greater satisfaction with a direct/indirect scheme that includes wallwashing at the perimeter—and even greater satisfaction, as well as improved motivation, with the addition of personal control—versus traditional approaches. This research is particularly noteworthy because it is one of the first scientific studies to comprehensively address lighting quality. As its findings are likely to be translated into broader lighting design practice, the study has a strong potential to deeply impact how facilities are lighted in the future …” “Lighting That Benefits People And The Environment” (PDF) - International Association for Energy-Efficient Lighting (IAEEL) “In most cases, recommendations are based on the opinions of experienced lighting designers and illuminating engineers, but there is no assurance that lighting designs meeting these recommendations will meet the needs of occupants, contributing to their satisfaction, task performance, comfort, and health …” “The Quest for the Ideal Office Control System” - Lighting Research Center “The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) facility was made available to the Lighting Research Center (LRC) to investigate the use of manual lighting controls on occupant behavior, energy savings, and occupant preferences. The incorporation of all these manual controls with a means to monitor their use allowed the first comprehensive look at modern occupant-responsive technologies. ‘Lighting controls have undergone major changes in the past 25 years,’ explains Dorene Maniccia, [who at the time was] manager of Lighting Applications at the LRC, who led the investigation at NCAR. ‘After the energy crisis in the 1970s, controls became independent of the occupant on the theory that automatic systems guaranteed energy savings. With a manual system, nobody knew if anyone used it, and you couldn't tell if you were saving energy. But the savings from automatic systems were believed to exist. One of the goals of the research at NCAR was to answer questions about whether man-ual systems are used, save energy, and are liked by occupants.’ The answers are yes, yes, and yes. Most occupants use manual controls, and doing so saves energy. And as an added benefit, the occupants valued having the manual controls …” “Working Designs” (PDF) - Consulting-Specifying Engineer Magazine “Lighting design affects office worker performance and satisfaction, according to two recently completed studies by the Institute for Research in Construction (IRC) at the National Research Council. The research also found that giving occupants control over lighting leads to energy efficiency …” “Personal Control: Boosting Productivity, Energy Savings” - Lighting Controls Association “Productivity has traditionally been regarded and measured as work output per man-hour. Today, in non-industrial organizations, productivity is being regarded as a broad range of positive outcomes, with job satisfaction being a leading outcome. Job satisfaction has become increasingly important, particularly for office workers, due to the lengthy period of time required for new employees to reach maximum efficiency, and turnover costs that can erode profitability and competitiveness … A number of studies demonstrate that personal dimming can result in higher productivity—specifically in the metrics of vigilance, motivation and satisfaction—and also in energy savings. This dual impact can result in an improved bottom line and more satisfied employees and tenants. These advantages are resulting in a significant new trend towards adoption of personal dimming solutions among designers and building owners. This white paper makes the case for personal control, in particular giving occupants the ability to control their own light levels through dimming …” - top - Daylight and Retail Sales—CEC PIER 2003 - Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. “This study presents evidence that a major retailer is experiencing higher sales in daylit stores than in similar non-daylit stores … Specifically, this study found that: Average effect of daylighting on sales for all daylit stores in this chain was variously calculated from 0% to 6%, depending on the type of model and time period considered … Daylight was found to have as much explanatory power in predicting sales … as other more traditional measures of retail potential, such as parking area, number of local competitors, and neighborhood demographics … The value of the energy savings from the daylighting is far overshadowed by the value of the predicted increase in sales due to daylighting. By the most conservative estimate, the profit from increased sales associated with daylight is worth at least 19 times more than the energy savings, and more likely, may be worth 45-100 times more than the energy savings …” Daylighting in Schools—PG&E 1999 - Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. “This study looks at the effect of daylighting on human performance. It includes a focus on skylighting as a way to isolate daylight as an illumination source, and separate illumination effects from other qualities associated with daylighting from windows … Controlling for all other influences, we found that students with the most daylighting in their classrooms progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% on reading tests in one year than those with the least. Similarly, students with the largest window areas were found to progress15% faster in math and 23% faster in reading than those with the least. And students that had a well-designed skylight in their room, one that diffused the daylight throughout the room and which allowed teachers to control the amount of daylight entering the room, also improved by 19-20% faster than those students without a skylight. We also identified another window-related effect, in that students in classrooms where windows could be opened were found to progress 7-8% faster than those with fixed windows, regardless of whether they also had air conditioning. These effects were all observed with 99% statistical certainty … [The consistency of results across three studied school districts] persuasively argues that there is a valid and predictable effect of daylighting on student performance …” Market Research Study - Light Right Consortium “ The objective was to understand in detail the current priorities, concerns, and decision processes of major corporations and facilities executives regarding the workplace environment. To achieve this goal, a survey was conducted with the assistance of a market research firm. As part of the survey, corporate and institutional realty managers, facilities executives, and division managers, who have profit-and-loss responsibilities tied to facility operations and staff management were contacted via telephone interviews. The survey focused on key facility management issues, the obstacles that affect the ability to deliver quality work environments, and how lighting fits into the workplace environmental planning priorities. The results of the market research reflected that, in general, lighting showed up very strongly in the list of priorities of those surveyed. The 60-90 minute survey was conducted on over 100 participants from the facilities profession, managers and executives …” Office Lighting Productivity Research Study (PDF) - Light Right Consortium “ The Albany research project uses a field simulation approach. This means that research will be conducted in an actual office setting, rather than a laboratory, but will utilize simulated tasks and a degree of experimental control which typify laboratory-type studies. This methodology was selected to enhance the realism of the study and, ultimately, to increase the external validity of the work. The question this study is addressing is, ‘Can different forms of realistic office lighting affect the performance of office work or the well-being of employees?’ The primary variables were room surface reflectance and personal control. An office was furnished as a typical office space for nine workers. The space had windows at the perimeter of the space and access to a view to simulate a typical open plan condition, but the actual daylight impact at the workstation locations was mitigated with the use of translucent window shades. The results showed that occupants appreciated quality lighting and had preferences that were consistent with our predictions …” Private Office Lighting Controls (PDF) - Lighting Research Center “The benefits that can be achieved for using lighting controls are not widely recognized. While reducing energy consumption is a major reason to install lighting controls, employee satisfaction should also be considered. The following study evaluated lighting controls in private offices and found that employees use and appreciate dimming controls …” Windows and Classrooms: A Study of Student Performance and the Indoor Environment—CEC PIER 2003 - Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. “This study investigates whether daylight and other aspects of the indoor environment in elementary school student classrooms have an effect on student learning, as measured by their improvement on standardized math and reading tests over an academic year. The study uses regression analysis to compare the performance of over 8000 3rd through 6th grade students in 450 classrooms … The findings of regression models in this study support the general conclusions that: The visual environment is very important for learning … Sources of glare negatively impact student learning … Direct sun penetration into classrooms, especially through unshaded east or south facing windows, is associated with negative student performance, likely causing both glare and thermal discomfort …” Windows and Offices: A Study of Office Worker Performance and the Indoor Environment—CEC PIER 2003 - Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. “This study reports on an investigation into the influences indoor physical environment has on office worker performance. It is particularly concerned with the potential contributions of windows and daylight to improved performance by office workers … The study sites provided a range of daylight, view and ventilation conditions, while providing a relatively uniform environment for other potential influences on worker performance … The studies found several physical conditions that were significantly associated … with worker performance, when controlling for other influences. Having a better view out of a window, gauged primarily by the size of the view and secondarily by greater vegetation content, was most consistently associated with better worker performance in six out of eight outcomes considered. Workers in the Call Center were found to process calls 6% to 12% faster when they had the best possible view versus those with no view. Office workers were found to perform 10% to 25% better on tests of mental function and memory recall when they had the best possible view versus those with no view. Furthermore, office worker self reports of better health conditions were strongly associated with better views …” - top -
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