Overshadowing and Reflections

Overshadowing is a crucial and often overlooked aspect of building design. Surrounding structures, vegetation and landscape can have a major effect on a building’s performance and occupant comfort – not to mention a building’s impact on its surroundings!  While many modern CAD packages can quickly give an indication of shadows, detailed modelling allows for the true impact on energy, lighting and glare for all possible conditions throughout a simulated year.

 

 

Shading Study - Overlapping shadows for each hour of a day in August clearly illustrate overshadowing at a glance.

Inter-reflection of buildings - Solar reflections off of building façades and roofs can pose unique challenges to proper daylight control of a building. Here, the reflection off of a warehouse roof onto an adjacent office building is illustrated. Annual simulations make it easy to identify problems that may otherwise have been missed.

Luminance False Colour Visualisation - A rendering for determining the amount of light reflecting off of a building at a given time of day.