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Continuing Education Use the following learning objectives to focus your study while reading this month’s ARCHITECTURAL RECORD / AIA Continuing Education article. Learning Objective: After reading this article, you will be able to: 1. Understand the impact of daylighting on human productivity, performance, and energy payback. 2. Correctly specify various glazing systems and methods 3. Apply principles of daylighting to designs.

	Rice School Library – A geodesic, half decagon-shaped translucent skylight, measuring 53 feet in diameter, brings natural daylight into Rice Elementary School in Houston, TX.

Architecture based on designs that, in varying and ingenious ways, capture natural light are among the most elegant and inspiring creations we encounter. Daylighting, the term that has become synonymous with the use of natural light in buildings, spawned a flurry of design literature beginning in the 1980s and continues to be one of the most widely researched topics in construction.

New glazing materials, new curtain wall systems and skylight technology and new understanding of their interplay has opened the door to wondrous new design opportunities. Not as widely understood is the notion that daylighting has become an essential energy-saving tool.

Effective daylighting design introduces natural light while balancing the elements of artificial lighting, solar heat gain, heat loss through glazing, and internal sources of heat gain. It attempts to maximize diffused light throughout the building interior, minimize direct sunlight and control heat gain. To be most effective, daylighting must be integrated with electric lighting, lighting controls, heating, cooling, and ventilation systems and occupant movement patterns. Success will provide a comfortable and energy-efficient building.

Daylighting, which curtain wall contractors say is still frequently perceived as “energy wasting,” has, perhaps surprisingly—since glazing has always been considered the least effective insulating element of a building—become an essential component of energy conservation programs across the country.

In California, which leads the nation in energy-efficient building construction—in the three years from 1999 to 2001, according to the Public Utilities Commission— energy efficiency programs, many of which are devoted to daylighting, saved 2.3 billion kWh of electricity, an amount sufficient to serve 362,000 homes—half the population of Delaware.

Skylighting offers potentially large energy savings—the average grocery store may save $16,000 (or 32 cents per sq ft) in energy costs through daylighting; schools, typically $7,500 (23 cents per sq ft) per year, industrial buildings up to 12 cents per sq ft, says Energy Design Resources, a consultancy funded by California utility customers and administered by Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison, under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission.