Assessment of skylight design configurations on daylighting performance in shopping malls: A case study

In Egypt and the Middle East, there is an obvious tendency of establishing new shopping malls and indoor commercial centers that provide collective facilities. However, they are accompanied by multiple design challenges including the provision of natural lighting for the interior spaces, which requires a careful consideration for the environmental design aspects. This research aims to provide a methodology to assess and optimize skylight designs to achieve better daylighting performance. A case study for a shopping mall in Cairo is selected where different skylight design configurations are examined. Skylight parametric variations include different opening ratios and visual transmittance values. Daylighting performance is tested in regards with daylit area coverage, potential for glare and accompanied energy consumption used for artificial lighting. A parametric simulation for 50 different cases are conducted and a multiple-criteria optimization is carried out to optimize material and ratio of size. Other parameters could be investigated in further researches. The optimum solution is further extracted and compared to the current base case. These results shows that early considerations in skylight and interior design could achieve more than 50% reduction in the overlit area, while achieving minor improvements in the daylit area. Yet, retrofitting measures are applicable for post construction and occupation periods.