Sunshading and Solar Paths

Good sustainable design optimizes the use of natural daylight within the building, thereby minimizing the need for artificial lighting. While letting in the natural daylight, it's good to mitigate the amount of direct light coming into the building because sunlight directly entering a building becomes heat and that heat then needs to be conditioned or taken into account for HVAC loads.

You can see even in this project the difference in direct sun exposure on the glazing at different times of year. Figure 10.10 shows the sun striking the building at noon on the equinox, while Figure 10.11 shows the sun hitting the building façade during the summer solstice. The deeper windows in this façade help to add some shading to ...

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