The Australian Greenhouse Offices in Canberra aimed to set new environmental standards, by halving the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of a standard building, achieving a better than 5-Star rating when assessed against the Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR) scheme, achieving autonomy in water use (ie generally, no town water required, providing a solar hot water system that is predicted to completely satisfy the hot water load), reducing construction waste and reducing operational waste. A key element in achieving these goals was to develop a building with high levels of usable daylight, and a very energy efficient electric lighting scheme that is also capable of responding to varying levels of daylight.
This Note details the daylight and lighting strategies used in designing this building, and then provides details of a post-occupancy daylight analysis.