Adaptive Solar Control Strategies for Visual Comfort and Sustainable Building Performance

Achieving a balance between energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and visual comfort in office buildings during the summer months is a critical objective for sustainable design in Mediterranean climates. This study focuses on optimiz-ing the use of solar shading in an existing office building located in Madrid to enhance indoor visual comfort during the summer period. The building features a large, glazed façade equipped with horizontal blade solar shading on the south-east elevation, which is currently manually operated. User comfort was assessed through an online survey, revealing significant visual discomfort among occu-pants working near the windows. To address this issue, a dynamic simulation of the solar shading operation was conducted using a detailed energy model of the building developed with Design Builder, while illuminance levels were obtained from the Daylight-Radiance module. The shading control strategy was designed considering indoor air temperature, incident solar radiation on the façade, and sun position, and it was applied to different configurations of the shading system, starting from the current operation mode (Analysis 0), which involves manual adjustment of the blade inclination. The implementation of the optimized con-trol logic (Analyses 1–2–3) and the advanced shading configuration (Analysis 4) demonstrated a significant improvement in visual comfort, achieving up to a 50% reduction in illuminance levels at workstations most affected by visual discom-fort. This optimization contributes to a more sustainable and comfortable indoor environment.