Daylight / View Access and Manual Shade Control

In this series I’ve previously provided an overview of the built environment’s dual evolutionary nature as well as covered the concept of evolutionary mismatches. Now it’s time to dig deeper into the implications of all this, starting with daylight and view access / control. And here we’re going to focus a bit more on the social rather than physical environment.

As described earlier, the building/occupant organism, and it’s relationship to the nested hierarchies it sits within, is complex. Comprehensive POEs of a socio-technic nature offer a powerful tool for understanding that complexity, how well the environment is aligned with occupant and organizational needs, and the potential presence of evolutionary mismatches, all of which are heavily influenced by both local contexts and our evolutionary history. This is why they’re useful (even if underutilized) for verifying building performance and occupant experience as well as validating design, construction, and operational strategies.

Returning to our circadian system and circadian health, vertical glazing can end up being the most important means available to occupants for obtaining enough daylight access at the right times of the day. To balance desired daylight/view access versus unwanted glare and solar heat gain or loss, occupants commonly must rely on manually adjusted shades. Such shades are often asked to do more than they should as a result of building orientation and/or inadequate passive daylighting control features.

A common theme in all of the comprehensive POEs we’ve conducted - K-12 schools, university buildings, corporate offices, federal courthouses, etc. - is the uncertainty surrounding the adjustment of manual shades in common spaces. Is it ok for me to adjust the shades? Should I ask those around me first? Do I feel comfortable doing either? How many of my fellow occupants must I coordinate with? How will others react? What’s socially expected depends on cultural norms, unwritten rules, and organizational policies (though typically nothing is made explicit with respect to shade control). Familiarity with one’s fellow occupants matters. Demographic factors, such as age, seniority, tenure, and privilege, weigh in on this. Individual psychological factors influence an occupant’s comfort level for taking action as well.

A common scenario for shades starting out the day raised is that at some point the amount of glare, high visual contrast ratios, and/or heat gain/loss becomes enough to override whatever shade adjusting social barriers exist, resulting in the shades over the offending glazing being lowered. But then, without any corresponding physiological discomfort to drive raising the shades, and through some combination of the social barriers present and inertia, the shades stay lowered, limiting daylight and view access from that point forward through the remainder of the day (as well as increasing the need for electric lighting). How long physiological discomfort is initially experienced before the shades are subsequently lowered to begin with depends on the nature of those social barriers as well as the degree of physiological discomfort experienced, tasks being conducted, and specific individual psychological factors.

Focusing on potential social barriers, different social factors impact one’s perception of ownership of the shades, and whether or not one can adjust them (or even ask others if it’s ok to make any adjustments). Employees with less tenure, employees visiting another office, contract employees, employees who sit farther away from the windows, non-residence hall students making use of the hall’s common spaces, library patrons, job categories with lower perceived status in an organization, and minority groups may all perceive less ownership of common shades (or other forms of common building controls) than other occupants present. Those who feel they have less ownership of manually controlled shades in common spaces will be less likely to make adjustments or ask those around them if it’s ok to do so.

The potential negative social outcomes from either bucking social barriers to take action or acquiescing to the barriers (e.g., tensions between employees, resentment, worry about the consequences of one’s actions, team and organization disfunction, etc.) can also negatively impact individual and organizational success and ultimately evolutionary fitness levels. In one corporate free address office setting we saw employees taking various actions to address poor IEQ conditions and a lack of personal control (perceived and actual) in open office settings, including that of manual shades, that raised tensions among employees and increased organizational disfunction (exacerbated by cultural differences and ineffective policies for the free address environment).

Using various engagement measures as a proxy for shared identity, we estimated that compared to other office settings of the building owner, these issues were reducing shared identity among the employees between 4% and 8%. We also estimated that these issues were resulting in 10% to 17% more inequities and conflicts compared to the other office settings.

However, we can modify the social/cultural and physical environments to better align more of these different needs (physiological comfort, social/psychological comfort, organizational unity) with the nature and capabilities of the surrounding environments. Solutions to this could consist of varying combinations of a) the use of multiple shades of shorter width versus single shades covering large window sections or an entire wall (see shade photo above), b) an automatically controlled shade system with local manual override capabilities (though this too comes with its own set of issues), and c) implementing policy changes along with messaging (including signage) and education to manage expectations, reduce social uncertainties, and improve occupant use of the manual shades.

In addition to better understanding the complex nature of reciprocal relationships between people and their environments relative to manual shades, the insights gathered from the ethnographic component of the socio-technic POE can also aid in developing the specific nature of the needed policy changes, messaging, and education. For example, ethnographic insights can help determine the most effective way to signal that everyone has ownership over common building controls in a university common space utilized by students, staff, and faculty from a variety of cultural backgrounds and lived experiences. Answering questions like this one better ensures needs are aligned with environmental capabilities, desired behaviors are facilitated, building performance is optimized, and evolutionary mismatches are avoided (such as daylight exposure inadequate for our circadian health).

Next time we’ll dig into thermal comfort relative to evolutionary mismatches and the evolutionary dual nature of our built environments.

And here’s your moment of humor:

I’m very grateful that someone invented window blinds…

Otherwise it would be curtains for all of us!