Izmir Tunahan, Gizem; (2022) Investigating the influence of cultural background on daylight perception. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL(University College London).

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Abstract

Millions of people migrate every year, aiming to settle either permanently or temporarily in new places. People from countries with different intensities of daylight might have various perceptions and expectations towards the climatic and indoor conditions. It might result from a previously accustomed lighting environment and other associated factors, namely individual cultural background. It is important because study outcomes may be utilised by architects and lighting professionals on how to design buildings and interior spaces depending on occupants’ perceptions and expectations to increase occupants’ satisfaction. This knowledge also can be used to save energy because the efficient use of daylight can reduce the energy consumption of both HVAC and illumination systems. To date, few studies have explored the relationship between cultural background and daylight perception; however, they mostly focused on glare sensitivity rather than daylight intensity. Cross-cultural studies aiming to investigate lighting preferences in interior environments are also rare. What is not yet known is the importance of cultural background and its impact on daylight perception, expectation, and satisfaction. Therefore, the development of a methodology for assessing daylight perception and its application in the context of cultural background are the main objectives of this research project, in order to investigate the impact of cultural background on daylight perception. In this thesis, three subjective evaluation methods were used to assess participants' daylight perceptions: subjective ratings, seat preference, and daylight boundary line drawings, and the perceived daylight availability obtained through these methods were compared to measured daylight availability. It was demonstrated that perceived daylight availability obtained through seat preference and subjective statement methods corresponds to some extent with actual daylight availability (p<0.01 and p =0.002, respectively). The findings obtained from both students’ seat selections and occupancy data from motion sensors in the library also highlighted the importance of daylight availability in the seat selection of students in the libraries. However, the lit area drawn by participants representing the perceived daylight conditions as part of the daylight boundary line method varied extensively from person to person regardless of actual daylight measurements. In other respects, a systematic review was conducted to create a conceptual framework of cultural background in the lit environment, and factors thought to be influencing daylight perception in the cultural context had been defined in four ways. These were ethnicity and/or physiological properties of individual eyes, the residential area, the previous luminance environment and sociocultural background. Finally, the developed methodology based on the previous findings was applied to understand if individuals perceive daylight conditions differently due to their cultural backgrounds. Although some findings proved that culture might be an important factor in daylight perception, the study results did not provide strong evidence of a cultural background influence on daylight perception. However, the number of participants in this study (N=193) was limited, and this unique topic requires additional research with larger sample size.

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