Turkish d-light: accentuating heritage values with daylight

Historic buildings have their own cultural identity, which is often related to their aesthetic qualities, such as period characteristics (geometry, size, colour, form and shape), materials and construction. Daylight is one of the primary elements that have contributed to the distinctiveness of the visual environment of many historic buildings. Yet when construction preservation schemes of historical buildings are planned, daylight is rarely considered as one of the components that shape the character of buildings. Many of these buildings were originally designed to accommodate different activities to their new use. Preserving the quality of daylight that originally contributed to their visual identity is a challenging task. Maintaining the “daylit appearance” of a building can be particularly problematic if the building is to be used as a museum or a gallery due to artefacts’ conservation requirements.
This paper investigates the opportunities of maintaining the original ambient conditions of renovated historical buildings while meeting the required daylight levels of the proposed new use. The paper utilises an annual daylight simulation method and hourly weather data to preserve daylight conditions in renovated historic buildings. The model is piloted in a Turkish bathhouse situated in Bursa, Turkey, that is currently under renovation. The simulation model produces 4483 hourly values of daylight illuminance for a period of full year using the computer program Radiance. The paper claims that daylight characteristics should be taken into account when developing a renovation scheme. With the increasing pressure for valuing historic buildings in many parts of the world, the work reported in this study can be beneficial to those concerned with the conservation practice and the adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The study findings can also be useful to those interested in predicting potential energy savings, combining daylighting and electric lighting in historic buildings.