P.J. Littlefair

This report describes commonly used shading devices and some new developments. It gives the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of shading device. The guidance focuses on shading requirements in the UK and similar climates and latitudes.

This book provides comprehensive design guidance on urban layout to ensure good access to solar gain, daylighting and passive cooling. It aims to enable designers to produce comfortable, energy-efficient buildings surrounded by pleasant outdoor spaces, within an urban context that minimizes energy consumption and the effects of pollution. The book is the principal output of a project jointly funded by the European Commission JOULE programme and national funding agencies including the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The European project is coordinated by BRE and includes the University of Athens, LEMA (University of Liege) and AICIA (University of Seville). This book is divided into six main chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene, outlining the importance of each of the main environmental factors affecting site layout. Chapters 2-6 then cover the urban design process, from the selection of a site for a new development down to the design and landscaping of individual buildings and the spaces around them.

Conventional solar prediction techniques tend to assume an unobstructed site, but nearly all urban and suburban sites are obstructed to some degree. This report contains manual tools to find, for almost all of Europe, how much skylight, sunlight and solar gain reach the outside of an obstructed window or a point in a building layout. Complex as well as simple obstruction profiles can be modelled. The tools comprise: a skylight indicator, sunlight availability indicators, sunpath indicators, and solar gain indicators.