Daylighting simulation as an architectural design process in museums installed with toplights

Museums have the most complicated lighting criteria of common building types. A stable lighting environment for visitors and artworks should be guaranteed within the exhibition areas of museums. This paper presents a challenge to the application of daylighting simulation integrated into the architectural design process (DSADP). The scale model measurements and computer simulations were carried out to verify the computer program RADIANCE. A comparison between the measurement and simulation results showed that there was considerable relative error at measurement points. Therefore, a correction factor (CF) and corrected simulation (CS) were recalculated to correct the simulation results. The Seoul Museum of Art (SMOA) was selected to make an application of DSADP. The monitor and sawtooth-shaped toplights were chosen as attractive alternatives for the existing skylight of SMOA. The application of DSADP was carried out by changing the light transmission efficiency and opening size of the toplights. The RADIANCE results showed that computer simulation models can accurately represent the lighting environment under clear sky conditions, and more importantly, they can be used to propose an alternative toplight for SMOA. Therefore, the research results showed that DSADP technology would be very useful during the schematic design stage of the architectural design process. The findings of this research also suggested that there are large differences between the real sky conditions for scale model measurements and the CIE sky conditions for computer simulations. More studies are required to reduce the differences between real and simulated sky conditions.