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Introduction: This case study was performed by a team of architecture and engineering students from the University of Waterloo in order to determine the effects of daylighting and passive design in a commercial building. It was completed as part of Architecture 366: Energy in Design, and is part of the "Vital Signs" project, which is administered by the University of California at Berkeley.

The "Green on the Grand" building was the first in the C-2000 program , a program developed by Natural Resources Canada in order to promote the design and construction of energy efficient commercial buildings. It is a unique Canadian commercial building located in Kitchener Ontario, Canada and was designed to meet strict energy and water consumption guidelines that exceed even the most demanding standards.

Objective: In this study the success of these energy and water consumption related design goals were investigated and two main objectives or hypotheses were established::

1) An office building can achieve a significant energy reduction through the successful use of advanced envelope construction and mechanical systems without affecting the occupant attitude or changing the quality of the interior (workplace).

2) A comfortable working atmosphere based on the maximization of natural daylighting can be achieved regardless of window positioning and distribution according to the cardinal axes, but not without the use of exterior shading devices.

To test these hypotheses this investigation used quantitative and qualitative methods of gathering information. These included a daylighting survey of building occupants, monitoring of the building's thermal performance and light conditions using dataloggers, interviews with the designer and architect, and a study of light penetration in different seasons with the use of a daylighting model.

The Vital Signs Curriculum Materials Project

Last Modified: April 23rd, 1998