Double-Skin Facades in Hospitals as an Approach for Enhancing Visual Comfort in Patient Rooms

Abstract

Daylighting provision is an efficient approach in achieving a healing environment. Several researches praised the effect of daylight on stress reduction, shorter hospital length of stay, and the increasing of patients’ satisfaction. The building façade has the primary role in controlling the indoor environment. In addition to daylighting, Double-Skin Façade (DSF) is an approach that can create a balance between patients’ needs without sacrificing energy reduction and thermal comfort in the hot arid desert climate. This thesis aims at identifying the design parameters for the use of double-skin facades in hospital buildings to achieve visual comfort in patient rooms. The research concentrates on the effect of changing the DSF cavity depth and investigates the effect of using cavity integrated horizontal louvers on patients’ visual comfort in patient rooms. This thesis consists of three parts and ends with the conclusions and recommendations. The first part (chapter 1) introduced the concept of healing environment and the factors affecting it. It also discussed the importance of visual comfort and daylight in the creation of an adequate healing environment for patients. In the second part (chapter 2) Double-Skin facades are introduced and its classifications according to daylighting performance. The chapter also illustrated the climatic considerations for DSF highlighting the hot arid climate criteria through analyzing different hospitals case studies using DSF. In The third part (Chapter 3) the two-phased research methodology was presented A standard inboard-bathroom patient room using multi-story DSF was selected in Cairo as a case study and its daylighting performance was analyzed. The effect of changing the cavity depth represented phase one, while investigating the effect of changing louver’s depth and slats’ number a cavity integrated louver shading system represented phase two of the methodology. The results of the two phases were analyzed and compared to the results of the base cases (Chapter 4).