KJ Tait were appointed by Galliford Try to carry out an assessment of the daylight available to a proposed new 3FE Secondary School in Oxford including a separate sports hall.

The project consisted of the provision of:

• Climate Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) to all teaching spaces in accordance with the guidelines of the Educational and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)
• Average Daylight Factor (ADF) to all other occupied spaces in line with Lighting Guide 5 (LG5)

Objective was to calculate the usable lighting within all teaching areas using the Climate Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) technique calculating the UDI-a and sDA. These were then assessed against the Educational and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) requirements.

Due to the shape of the building there were issues with shadowing from adjacent wings. After the first assessment it was clear that the building rotation, façade design and location was proving an issue with the overall pass of 80%.

We assessed the façade prior to planning and managed to work with the Architect to increase the amount of daylight to achieve the overall pass.