Natural illumination availability in Ponte de Pedra apartment block: a case study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the in-situ measurements of the natural illumination availability in the Ponte da Pedra apartments block, These measurements were carried out in order to meet the SHE (Sustainable [lousing in Europe) project requirements, This paper also presents a comparative analysis of the natural illumination environmental conditions of one of the apartments in this building, by using two simulation tools to predict natural illumination availability: "Ecotect" and "Desktop Radiance", The results obtained with these tools were also compared with the "in situ" measurements, in order to show that simple and user-friendly software tools can be a good basis to evaluate the real natural illumination conditions in the practise of a building project.