Jiayu Pan

Daylight is an essential element in environmental design. It has a significant role in enhancing users’ perception of a space and saving building energy. Understanding the daylight performance in the built environment is a compulsory task for architectural
designers and engineers.

While my supervisor Dr Ronita Bardhan curates my research interests in the data-driven sustainable built environment and environmental design, my interest in the role of daylight in design originates from the graduate lecture series delivered by Professor Koen Steemers and the publications on office and daylight design by Professor Christoph Reinhart. Professor Steemers introduced the idea of involving health and well-being considerations in urban and architectural design in his lectures. He demonstrated what is good design from the perspective of natural light and ventilation with convincing case studies, which impressed me and guided me to explore more about relevant design strategies for human well-being. Professor Reinhart has an extensive amount of work on daylight and energy-saving design, which opens up the technical side of daylight evaluation and simulation to me and further leads to the development of my PhD project.