Method of Deriving Shaded Fraction According to Shading Movements of Kinetic Façade

Exterior dynamic shading devices, installed on “kinetic façades”, generate shaded areas of various shapes on windows according to the shape of the shading elements and the direction of their movement. The calculation of the shaded area is vitally important because it is directly related to the solar heat gain calculation process in building energy assessments. This paper dis-cusses a dynamic calculation method for deriving shaded fractions in consideration of the irregular shapes and unique movements of the shading elements in kinetic façades. The planar-polygon method was adopted for calculating accurate shaded areas on a window generated by irregularly shaped shade elements. To account for movements of the shading elements, the range of movement directions (i.e., rotating, sliding, etc.) was divided into steps of equivalent intervals. Applying these two methods, a shaded area calculation tool for the kinetic façade was developed. Three movement directions of shading devices were chosen for calculating shaded area, and the values of shaded fractions for six kinetic façade types were derived for different façade orientations during the summer and winter solstices. Lastly, to simplify the detailed calculation method, estimation equations for two types of kinetic façade were derived from a trend analysis of the shaded fraction values. This study deals with both detailed and simplified methods (estimation equation) for deriving the shaded fraction. The detailed method can be a more accurate solution in deriving the shaded fractions generated by complex exterior movable shading devices. However, the simplified method can be adopted in the early design stages to review various shading devices within a brief duration of time.