Light has a huge impact on our lives; from our health, to our visual comfort and satisfaction with our local environment, to the way in which we behave indoors and operate our buildings.  The way we use, or don’t use, light in the built environment can vary dramatically, yet very often lighting design strategies don’t take into account the behavior of the very people for whom that built environment is designed for.

Blinds and other shading devices are utilized to block bright sunlight. This has the unintended consequence of cooling an indoor space, which can impact the energy use of a building.  Moreover, those shading strategies may cover more window space than necessary, as in the case of needing to block a small portion of the window to reduce glare, or they may be left in place when building occupants have left, blocking sunlight for longer periods of time than necessary.

Our research has several focal points: 1) understanding the human preference for lighting based on type, color, intensity, and social context, 2) integrating human preference and human behavior into building simulation modeling to better predict how a building will be used and its energy expenditure, and 3) design strategies to balance the use of daylight, artificial light, and shading devices to improve human comfort and reduce energy expenditure.