Siobhan Rockcastle was invited to give a two-day workshop to 2nd-year architecture students at Cal Poly SLO on February 22-23. This workshop was funded by a Nuckolls Funds Grant awarded to faculty at Cal Poly and was designed to infuse outside expertise into the design of core curriculum components in environmental design. Siobhan was accompanied by Kelly Kottlowski, a recent M.Arch graduate from the University of Oregon, who supported the delivery of workshop content and design critiques.

The students produced rough scaled physical models of their design projects and captured these using compact 360-degree cameras. Over the course of two hours, the students manipulated the models to alter the distribution of daylight and drive perceptual effects. These 360 photographs were then uploaded to an online site where students could explore the scenes from an immersive point-of-view. The workshop moved digital on day two and students were introduced to workflows in Climate Studio to model daylight performance metrics and produce accurate daylight renderings using Radiance.

An article co-authored by Siobhan Rockcastle, Galen Sollom-Brotherton Whalen, Aaron Milgrim, and Robert Davis titled, “The Use of Virtual Screens in Perceptual Studies on Electric Light: A Comparison Between 2D, Panoramic, Cardboard, and Head-Mounted Displays” has been accepted for publication in LEUKOS.

An article co-authored by Siobhan Rockcastle and Alen Mahic has been accepted for publication in Energy and Buildings. The paper, titled, “Simulating the annual energy demand to meet non-visual health recommendations from a luminaire level lighting control system” introduces a novel simulation-based approach and the results from a case-study. The pre-print is now available online.

The paper titled, “The Impact of Operated Window Shading on Visual Comfort, Non-Visual Health, and Energy Demand from Electric Lighting” was accepted to the proceedings of Building Simulation 2023 after a double-blind peer-review process. The paper summarizes research in the Baker Lighting Lab to develop an annual climate-based simulation workflow for evaluating non-visual health and visual comfort in buildings with operated shading and lighting control systems. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lighting R&D Program, part of the Building Technologies Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). the paper was co-authored by Siobhan Rockcastle, Alen Mahic, and Sarah Safranek (PNNL), with support from Dr. Robert Davis and Dr. Belal Abboushi.

The paper titled, “Disparities in circadian potential: the impact of building form and interior wall composition on dynamic light exposure” was accepted to Building Simulation 2023 after a double-blind peer-review process. The paper was co-authored by Siobhan Rockcastle, Hadley Carlberg (UO B.Arch 2023′), Maryam Esmailian (UO PhD Candidate), and Maria Amundadottir (Oculight Analytics, Reykjavik). This paper describes a weighted approach to predicting the impact of building form and occupant behavior on the equity of daylight exposure to support circadian health across a population of occupants. While the workflow does not integrate electric light sources, it describes a method of predicting the circadian daylight potential of a building and can help identify which occupants would be most reliant on electric light sources based on deficiencies in daylight access.

On February 16th, Siobhan traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to present a public lecture and workshop at Florida Atlantic School of Architecture. Her talk focused on the impacts of daylight on the perception of architecture and human health in daylit buildings as a result of healthy exposure.  She presented recent research from the Baker Lighting Lab and Oculight dynamics and gave a 2-hour workshop on the use of building performance simulation in the design of daylit buildings.