Effects of an Indoor Living Wall on Room Lighting Conditions: Comparison Between Measured and Simulated Data

In recent years, vertical greening systems have been progressively used not only on the external side of the building but also within indoor spaces. In parallel to other IEQ domains as thermal comfort, air and acoustic quality, an Indoor Living Wall (ILW) impacts lighting quality. In lighting design with specific simulation software, it is fundamental set the most appropriate colouration and reflectance coefficients (ρs) of the surfaces. Otherwise, plants’ reflectance coefficients are difficult to estimate since they do not have any of the following characteristics: planarity, colour and texture uniformity. In addition, each plant’s essence is characterized by peculiar lighting and growing properties. These factors make the design process quite tricky because the unknown distance between simulated lighting conditions and real lighting performances is difficult to be evaluated in advance. This research describes a case study where a room containing an ILW is simulated with DialuxEVO and then compared and validated with in situ monitored data. An empirical procedure for estimating ρs of the ILW in situ is used. The aim is to assess the level of precision of the previous procedure by comparing measured and simulated lighting data in order to carry out useful hints for ILW lighting simulations for designers.