Daylight Group

The Daylight Group provides a forum for members and non-members of CIBSE to meet and discuss issues relating to the daylighting of buildings.

A wide variety of fields is represented by the Group, notably lighting designers and researchers, architects, manufacturers and academics. Meetings are held on a quarterly basis and usually given a theme.

This provides a focus for each meeting's paper contributions and discussion, as well as a framework allowing the Group to respond to its members' diverse range of interests. Meetings are usually located in London though at a variety of venues. At present, one meeting during the year is set aside for a study visit. The buildings chosen for these visits are restricted neither to contemporary examples nor to those showing innovative techniques. Recent visits have included Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Chiswick House, which have provided a historical perspective to the Group's discussions.

To date, the Daylight Group has maintained a relatively loose and informal structure. Its organisation throughout the year is undertaken by a small committee, elected at the AGM, and this is also the occasion at which the themes for the forthcoming year are selected.

Recent meetings have covered the following issues:

• Guaranteeing the provision of daylight within buildings
• A graphical design technique for solar shading
• Daylight use
• Daylight in offices
• BRE guidance on display screen equipment
• Daylighting under sunny skies - an illustrated talk on vernacular buildings in the Middle East including a fresh method of illuminance prediction for interiors lit by cloudless skies.
• Atrium design
• Human responses to daylight
• European daylighting research
• Museums and gallery daylighting

Whilst the Group has no formal aims, it seeks to encourage as wide as possible a cross-section of those working in the Building Industry to take a well-informed and practical approach to maximise the use of daylight in buildings.