Inkling offers various standard and bespoke assessments of natural light provision, shading and overshadowing. The information we provide is both quantitative and qualitative, technically robust whilst being understandable.

Early stage simulations can assess a project’s potential to receive adequate light and indicate any areas of a proposed building which may cause an excessive impact on its neighbours. We also recommend early simulations to avoid overheating problems later in the design process and to analyse the potential of passive and active solar features (e.g. for Passivhaus, PV and solar water heating).

For planning and pre-planning stages, we write the daylight/sunlight/overshadowing reports required by many local authorities to obtain planning permission. We analyse daylight distribution within a building (the technical aspect of a Rights of Light study) and can calculate daylight factors for BREEAM and the Code for Sustainable Homes.

In the later stages of design, we can help reduce energy consumption by balancing useful natural light with unwanted solar gain and designing appropriate shading. Subsequent analyses can simulate internal lighting conditions to check for glare and estimate electricity savings from daylight/occupancy-linked lighting.