The latter half of the 20th century saw the development of lightweight tensioned translucent membranes as shading devices and their increasing use in providing daylight and daylight control. Buildings with high lighting consumption and long operation hours in particular are including translucent membranes in their daylighting strategies. For this reason, the use of reliable tools for the prediction of the lighting environment experienced in daylit spaces, which exploit translucent membranes, has become essential. To date most analytic efforts related to predicting daylighting performance has concentrated on the analysis of light penetration through glass openings. Little attention has been paid to the light transmission through fabric membranes. The membranes itself are normally in tensioned creating double curvature shapes. The simulation of light transmitted through membranes involves the modelling of complex geometries, which places significant demand to their modelling. This thesis explores the daylighting performance of sports buildings that include translucent membranes as part of their daylighting strategy. Performance of these buildings has been assessed by field illuminance measurements, physical scale modelling in artificial sky and three-dimensional modelling using Radiance software. The accuracy of the simulation tools is assessed against the lighting data recorded in the field study. Findings show that physical scale models tend to overestimate the illuminance levels and daylight factors of the sports halls. On the other hand, Radiance simulations proved to be accurate in terms of daylight factors and illuminance distribution in the playing areas. Finally, a questionnaire has been distributed among the occupants of the three case study buildings and one totally artificially illuminated sports centre. The purpose of this survey is to evaluate the users satisfaction towards the lighting environment of the enclosures. The ability to accurately predict the daylighting performance in membrane sports buildings is significant for the development of research in daylighting and sustainable architecture. In addition, the further use of translucent membranes for the control of natural light in all type of buildings relies on the possibility to confidently predict their daylighting performance.

The reduction of fossil fuel consumption and the associated decrease in greenhouse gas emissions are vital to combat global warming and this can be accomplished, in part, by the use of natural light to provide illumination in buildings. Demand for artificial lighting and the availability of daylight often correspond, so savings can be significant. To assess the performance of several innovative daylighting devices and to develop improved models for more established technology, quantitative measurement of output was necessary. This was achieved by the development of simply constructed photometric integrators which were calibrated by the innovative use of daylight as a source of illuminance. These devices were found to be consistent and accurate in measuring the luminous flux from a number of devices and in a number of locations. The novel light rod was assessed as a core daylighting technology and found to transmit light with high efficiency at aspect ratios of up to 40. It was found to have higher transmittance than the light pipe and with a considerably smaller diameter, could be used in space-restricted applications. Light rods were bent by infra-red heating and found to lose minimal transmittance. The light rod emitter was modified to give a variety of types of light distribution, including side emission and the results were visually and quantitatively assessed. Energy saving capacity was assessed and a model of performance developed for the first time. The long-term measurement of light pipe performance and measurement of length and diameter effects led to several improved models of performance for European latitudes. Several means of improving yield were investigated, including novel cone concentrators, laser cut panels and innovative high-efficiency reflective films. The concentrators and films were found to give significantly higher output than a standard light pipe, increasing energy savings and associated benefits for the user.

Discomfort glare is considered to be an annoyance or distraction caused by sources of non-uniform or high luminance within the field of view of an observer. There are still significant gaps in our understanding of the conditions that characterise the magnitude and occurrence of discomfort glare, this being especially evident in the presence of large sources of luminance such as windows. The large degree of scatter that is observed when subjective evaluations of glare sensation are compared against calculated glare indices suggests that discomfort glare may be dependent on other variables beyond the physical and photometric parameters that are commonly embedded in glare formulae (e.g., source luminance, source size, background luminance, and position index). There are strong reasons to believe that some of these variables might be linked to the time of day when the observer is exposed to the glare source. In response, this thesis investigated the research hypothesis that subjective glare sensation is associated with temporal variability. This hypothesis was tested in two stages. The first stage was conducted within a laboratory setting, and sought to examine temporal effects under controlled artificial lighting conditions. The collection of temporal variables and personal factors – thereby examining the scatter in glare responses across the independent variable (time of day) and isolating potential confounding variables – enabled to identify factors that could influence the subjective evaluation of glare sensation along the day. Having established the presence of a temporal effect on glare response, the influences detected were further explored within a test room with direct access to daylight, whereby temporal variables and personal factors were measured in conjunction to glare sensation for them to be statistically masked from the analysis. The results confirmed the hypothesis of an increased tolerance to glare as the day progresses. This supported the conclusion that physical and photometric parameters alone are not sufficient for a robust prediction of discomfort glare.