The Impact of Glazing on Winter Thermal Comfort

In the Autumn 2017 issue of Journal of the National Institute of Building Sciences, learn about the research and motivation behind developing our Glazing and Winter Comfort Tool.

In a quest for transparency, designers are incorporating more glass into facades, but often with scant consideration of a building’s location and climate. Although this trend is beneficial for daylight harvesting and an occupant’s connection to the outdoors, it can sacrifice occupant comfort in wintertime conditions. The baseline solution to mitigate discomfort and heat loss is to add perimeter heat. For healthy and sustainable buildings, an alternative passive solution is to either modify window proportions or increase glazing performance.

A team of building scientists and web designers has developed a free online tool, the Glazing and Winter Comfort Tool, to understand early in the design process how glazing impacts occupant comfort. Building on the latest scientific research, the tool enhances designers’ understanding of glazed facades and winter thermal discomfort.

This article addresses factors that create such discomfort, describes some earlier approaches and evaluation software tools and explains the operation of the new Glazing and Winter Comfort Tool.

Read the article.    

Paper authors: Vera Baranova, AIA; Chris Mackey; Alejandra Menchaca, PhD, LEED AP, WELL AP and Lynn Petermann, AIA, LEED AP BD+C