International Journal of

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It is accepted that the visual comfort in schools depends on the quality of the whole visual environment. This leads to the concern upon the quality and quantity of lighting. Currently in Iran, in order to calculate energy transfer for public buildings a coefficient is usually used. This coefficient considers the rate of sunlight energy absorption in these kinds of buildings. To increase the degree of accuracy in the calculation mentioned above, the authors suggest a simulation programme that can do the job precisely and accordingly. It seems that, in order to calculate the energy requirements of school buildings in Iran for heating, cooling and lighting, it is better to use a simulation programme, too. In fact, this paper considers details of lighting as part of a comprehensive programme and Iran schools design requirements for lighting. As we will see, this research describes the method of calculation of daylighting, which is used in the part of lighting simulation programme. Effective daylighting design requires consideration of different factors such as daylight factor, luminous efficacy of solar radiation, orientation factor, glass transmittance factor, average reflectance of material and etc. which are need for calculation of exterior and interior luminance. They are discussed in details in this paper.

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Orientation of classrooms is an important challenge in architectural design of a school. However, there is a lack of appropriate knowledge about influence of orientation on students’ perception of daylighting in classrooms. This paper presents a questionnaire survey that was conducted to compare students’ perception and satisfaction with daylighting in classrooms of a high school in Tabriz, Iran. Statistical analysis of responses was done to identify daylight factor and their relationships with satisfaction with daylighting in northern and southern classrooms. In southern classrooms, satisfaction with daylighting had significantly negative and positive correlation with perception of reflected and direct glare, respectively. In northern classrooms, perception of unified daylight and control of sunlight overheating by operable windows had significantly strong and positive correlation with satisfaction with daylighting, respectively. The students’ seating location had significant influence on satisfaction with daylighting and perception of direct glare in southern classrooms. In northern classrooms, students’ seating location caused different perception of reflected glare. The results showed that orientation did not lead to significant difference between satisfactions with daylighting in northern and southern classrooms. Although, in southern classrooms, the mean votes of satisfaction with daylighting was higher than northern classrooms.