Architectural Science Review

ISSN: 0003-8628 (Print) 1758-9622 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tasr20

A method for the generation of climate-based,

context-dependent parametric solar envelopes

Isaac Guedi Capeluto & Boris Plotnikov

To cite this article: Isaac Guedi Capeluto & Boris Plotnikov (2017) A method for the generation of
climate-based, context-dependent parametric solar envelopes, Architectural Science Review, 60:5,
395-407, DOI: 10.1080/00038628.2017.1331334

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00038628.2017.1331334

Published online: 29 May 2017.

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 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW, 2017
VOL. 60, NO. 5, 395–407
https://doi.org/10.1080/00038628.2017.1331334

A method for the generation of climate-based, context-dependent parametric solar

envelopes
Isaac Guedi Capeluto and Boris Plotnikov
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper proposes a method and a tool for determining maximum building heights in an urban set- Received 9 October 2016
ting while maximizing solar access. Expanding upon previously conducted ‘solar envelopes’ research, a Accepted 12 May 2017
flexible and advanced filtering mechanism based on weather data, site geometry and mixed program- KEYWORDS
matic requirements is introduced and the concept of parametric solar envelopes is presented. In order Solar access; solar envelopes;
to make the proposed method widely accessible, it is released as an open-source tool as part of the Lady-
Downloaded by [Universidad de Concepción] at 12:24 22 September 2017

sustainable design;
bug analysis tools suite in Rhino/Grasshopper. As a case study, a comparison of simulated solar envelopes Grasshopper parametric
based on varying requirements in an urban context is presented and the qualitative and quantitative modelling; Ladybug
advantages compared to existing methods are discussed. It is expected that this method and its practical
implementation will inform the early design stages and provide meaningful feedback which will contribute
to environmentally conscious design and healthier, more sustainable environments.

1. Introduction
Planning in such a way as to allow for sun access by regulating
the form, height, orientation and organization of the built envi-
ronment has been exercised since Ancient Greece, and perhaps
even before that in China (Butti and Perlin 1980). Both the city
and the single building design took local climate into account
to achieve comfort conditions passively and allow for sun access
to the built environment and open spaces. However, in modern
times and with cities increasing in population and built density,
sun access considerations have often been overlooked in the
design process, at least in part due to a lack of urban zoning
regulations and the relative simplicity of using electric lighting
and HVAC systems in buildings compared to the complexity of
introducing solar access considerations in the design process.
Planning for sun access requires zoning regulations which take
the local climate and the specific context into account yet nowa-
days, in places where they exist, they mostly rely on rules of
thumb and are ambiguous. Common zoning regulations include
regulations for the placement of solar energy devices as is the
case in the State of Hawaii and recognition solar right claims by
property owners as in the State of New Mexico (Solar America
Board for Codes and Standards 2008), building setbacks (City
of Berkeley 2008), maximum height and number of floors (LA
Department of Building and Safety 2013), a percentage between
built floor area and land area of the site (Floor Area Ratio)
(City of Chicago 2007) and requirements to provide sun access
for a few representative hours of the year (City of Fort Collins
2016).
These regulations are far from ideal as yearly sun access is not
taken as a direct parameter and often results in designs which
are detached from the climate conditions of the site and in turn
create environments which provide less comfort in open spaces
and consume more energy for lighting and HVAC systems in
buildings. More advanced models have been proposed, notably
by Knowles (1974, 1981) who has coined the term solar enve-
lope as ‘a way to assure urban solar access for both energy and
life quality’ (Knowles and Villecco 1980). As computers became
prevalent, so did the feasibility of creating computational mod-
els to simulate such envelopes. Although much research has
been conducted in this field during the last 35 years, most of
the work has remained in the academic realm and the use of
solar envelopes as a regulative tool as well as a design tool
has not become widespread. Possible reasons include compu-
tationally expensive simulations, the ability to calculate only
very basic geometries and a lack of public availability as many
of these tools have been developed in the academia as proofs
of concept.
The model discussed in this paper extends upon the capabili-
ties presented and implemented in the SustArc model (Capeluto
and Shaviv 1997) which introduced the concept of solar volume
(SV) defined by two solar envelopes, both generated by defin-
ing specific insolation conditions and providing the context of
the site: solar rights envelope (SRE) and solar collection envelope
(SCE).
The model presented in this paper suggests refining the way
solar envelopes are determined by redefining the conditions

CONTACT Boris Plotnikov pborisp@gmail.com Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 396 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
which constitute a violation of solar rights, thus providing a
model which more accurately simulates real-world requirements
and allows maximization of the resulting SV. This is done by uti-
lizing information from meteorological stations (temperature,
radiation levels, humidity and wind velocity and direction) to
receive an insight as to the specific weather conditions of the
site. A further refinement considers the horizontal incidence sun
angle relative to each facade for a more accurate representation
of direct sun access. Lastly by differentiating between different
requirements in a mixed-use environment, we are able to refine
the criteria for the creation of the envelope even more according
to programmatic requirements, creating solar envelopes which
are truly site specific and take the local climate and the built
context into account.
Another goal focused on bridging the gap between research
and practice, providing accessible and open-source means for
architects to easily perform the described simulations. Hence
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much thought has been invested in choosing the develop-
ment environment. Rhinoceros, a 3D modelling tool, which is
becoming increasingly used among architects (https://www.
rhino3d.com/) and Grasshopper3D, a ‘graphical algorithm edi-
tor’ plug-in for Rhino (http://grasshopper3d.com), which pro-
vides a .NET programming interface, were chosen as the
base environment. The tool has recently been fully integrated
in Ladybug (Sadeghipour Roudsari and Pak 2013), an open-
source plug-in for Grasshopper and Rhinoceros and can be
accessed at the following link – http://www.grasshopper3d.
com/group/ladybug, and documentation regarding the tool
can be found in the Ladybug primer through this link –
https://mostapharoudsari.gitbooks.io/ladybug-primer/content/
text/components/SolarEnvelope.html. Ladybug imports stan-
dard EnergyPlus weather files (EPW) into Grasshopper and pro-
vides a variety of tools and 3D interactive visualization to support
the decision-making process during the initial stages of design.
The motivation to incorporate the tool in an existing and publicly
accessible platform is twofold. First, much of the development
could be simplified by relying on functionality already imple-
mented in existing tools and second, as continuous develop-
ment and a growing and active community around these tools
is formed, there is a greater chance that the tools will be acces-
sible, used and in turn benefit from feedback and support from
the community.
2. Context
The ancient Greek understood the importance of planning in
relation to solar access.
The Greeks learned to build their houses to take advantage of
the sun’s rays during the moderately cool winters, and to avoid
the sun’s heat during the hot summers. Thus solar architecture-
designing buildings to make optimal use of the sun – was born in the
West . . . Individual homes were oriented toward the southern hori-
zon, and entire cities were planned to allow their citizens equal access
to the winter sun (Butti and Perlin 1980, 3)
for instance Olynthus, an ancient Greek city planned for maximal
solar access and with zoning regulations. ‘They situated the town
atop a sweeping plateau and built the streets perpendicular to
each other, running north–south and east–west. In this way, all
the houses on a street could be built with a southern exposure’
(Butti and Perlin 1980).
For a long time and especially as cities became denser there
were few advances in planning with regard to sun access and
often times solar orientation principles were simply overlooked.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning
of the twentieth century cities like Paris introduced zoning reg-
ulations which included building height and shape in relation to
street widths and were very specific:
For streets less than 12 meters (39.36 feet) in width, the height must
not exceed 6 meters (19.68 feet) plus the width of the street. For
streets of 12 meters and over this height must not exceed 18 meters
(58.64 feet) plus one-quarter of the amount by which the width of the
street exceeds 12 meters, but must not in any case exceed 20 meters
(65.60 feet). (Atkinson 1912)
England had similar laws.
In England the matter is regulated in two ways: directly, by building
by-laws limiting height, varying in different cities and for different
classes of buildings; and indirectly by the statute law of ancient lights.
Under this law an owner or tenant of a building may acquire a right
to light coming across the property of another, just as in this coun-
try a right of way across the land of another may be acquired by
prescription. (Atkinson 1912)
Existing zoning practices range from very strict, limiting build-
ings to a maximal height and/or number of floors to a more
lenient approach limiting the ratio between land area and built
floor area, allowing for more flexibility in utilizing the site. The
main problem with these approaches is that they are general
and consider the sun location only indirectly and as a result do
not allow for the maximum exploitation of the site potential nor
assure sun access on critical times.
Another approach often used nowadays relies on obstruction
angles where the building height cannot exceed a plane with a
certain angle relative to the horizon (Figure 1).
Not much has changed in terms of regulations, as seen from
reviewing the solar rights regulations in Israel nowadays, which
can be applied in the following three methods (The Standards
Institution of Israel 2011):
(a) Achieving the required amount of radiation for each ori-
entation, urban location and climatic zone (performance
approach).
Figure 1. A building following obstruction angle criteria.

(b) Ensuring exposure during pre-calculated insolation hours
which meet the radiation requirements (performance
approach).
(c) Using solar section lines as a simple tool for solar rights
design. Designing according to these section lines ensures
the solar rights of the surrounding buildings and open
spaces, without the need to demonstrate further require-
ments (descriptive approach).
The research in the field has progressed and more com-
plex models emerged. Arumi (1979) developed a computerized
model that allows one to determine the maximum allowed
height of a building that does not violate the solar rights of
existing neighbouring buildings. Knowles (1981) suggested a
method for assuring solar access to each residence unit in a
community. DeKay (1992) made a comparative analysis of var-
ious envelopes allowing daylight access. Schiler and Uen-Fang
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(1993) developed a computer program for generation of solar
envelopes for flat-rectangular sites based on Knowles work.
Other approaches couple solar envelope calculations with tra-
ditional CAD software. The model SustArc, developed by Cape-
luto and Shaviv (1997), serves as the base for this research and
would be elaborated upon shortly. Other models include Calc-
solar (Noble and Kensek 1998) which was integrated in AutoCad
but presented serious limitations as the site was limited to rect-
angular shapes and calculation was very time consuming. Juyal,
Kensek, and Knowles (2003) presented SolCAD: 3D which sup-
ported more elaborate site borders, yet this and the other mod-
els that were limited in setting up the initial parameters were
developed mainly as a proof of concept and are not publicly
available.
Though much research has been conducted in this field and
many models and theoretical solutions have been presented,
very few are commonly accessible for public use and in the
context of tools accessible for architects. Diva (Solemma LLC
2015) and Ladybug (Sadeghipour Roudsari and Pak 2013) are
implemented in the Rhinoceros/Grasshopper3D environment
and offer a self-solar rights envelope (an envelope which will
not overshadow any part beyond its own boundary for a certain
amount of hours) and rely on concepts introduced by Knowles
(1974, 1981), Capeluto and Shaviv (2001) and Niemasz, Sargent,
and Reinhart (2011). These envelopes are more simplistic than
the one presented in this paper as they do not allow for the
definition of a context (such as surrounding buildings and open
areas) separately from the envelope border and the selection
of the critical times is limited to a start and end time (Diva) or
required hours and a month range (Ladybug). Both rely on the
extrusion of surfaces and Boolean operations to determine the
final envelope, an operation which becomes problematic when
the base area is complex, when the site scale is big and very
computationally expensive and when many required times are
chosen.
The model SustArc expanded upon the term ‘solar envelope’
and offered the creation of two different types of envelopes.
SRE: A 3D constraint which defines the maximum height of a
built volume which would not violate the solar access for the
defined surroundings on specific hours, days and months. SCE: A
complementary 3D constraint which defines the lowest heights
from which a new built volume would receive solar access, given
ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW 397
a built context and on specific hours, days and months. The
volume included between both envelopes is called the ‘Solar
Volume’.
Solar envelopes have been traditionally advocated as a
means to achieve sustainable and energy-efficient development
and the use of SCE for self-shading building envelopes was
shown to have energy performance improvements (Capeluto
2003).
A recent study indicates that at least under some climate con-
ditions and building types, the use of traditional solar envelopes
has a negative effect on total energy use including transporta-
tion as well as larger negative impact on developable density
(Niemasz, Sargent, and Reinhart 2013). This is partially depen-
dent on lower densities leading to increased distance travelled
which leads to increased energy use. The study focuses on single
family detached residential homes in the US, but raises broader
questions regarding the overall usefulness of solar envelopes as
a design strategy.
This paper addresses these questions on three levels. On the
first level, the more refined and specific the solar envelopes are,
the bigger their volume will be, this is addressed in detail in
the case study in Section 5. On the second level, we must be
very clear when framing the purpose and goals of the proposed
method. Similar to annual lighting simulations, glare analysis
and thermal simulations focus on improving the quality of sim-
ulations within their realm, so does the method proposed in this
paper. Rather than being a one-click solution which addresses
all aspects of building performance, it provides better tools
for mediating between maximizing solar access while achiev-
ing greater built density (Capeluto and Shaviv 2001). Lastly,
though most of the previous research in the field focused on
energy savings, it has been shown that solar access and shade
have a major role in determining occupant thermal comfort
both outdoors and indoors (Arens et al. 2015). To further illus-
trate this point, a yearly psychrometric chart of Tel Aviv during
10.00–17.00 was prepared (Figure 2) using the Climate Con-
sultant tool (Milne, Liggett, and Al-Shaali 2007). Points inside
polygon 1 represent hours in comfort conditions with sum-
mer (right polygon) and winter (left polygon) clothing condi-
tions. The points inside polygon 9 and on the right of line 10
represent hours where comfort conditions could be reached
with solar exposure, showing that even in Tel Aviv’s temper-
ate climate occupant thermal comfort could be increased for
much of the cold period. As such this method expands upon
the concepts presented in the SustArc model inside the para-
metric design environment of Rhinoceros/Grasshopper3D and
makes use of both the advanced modelling and programming
interface capabilities of this environment and Ladybug in order
to retrieve and use site-specific climate data for advanced fil-
tering of weather conditions for which solar envelopes are
defined. In addition to the technical improvements and incor-
poration in popular easy to use modelling and simulative tools,
the proposed method advocates for a new way of generat-
ing solar envelopes which is based on specific requirements
throughout the year as opposed to general sun locations. It
is shown in Section 5 that this leads to an increase in the
volume of the developable solar envelope while maintaining
a more direct link between design objectives and simulation
results.
 398 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
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Figure 2. A yearly psychometric chart of Tel Aviv during 10.00–17.00 prepared with the Climate Consultant tool (version 6.0) showing the cold stress (points within
polygons 9–10) even in Tel Aviv’s temperate climate.
3. Calculating parametric solar envelopes (PSE)
The calculation of the PSE starts off with a question. For which
conditions do we want or need to allow direct sun access?
This is a reversal of many of the models presented in the previ-
ous section, as there is no relying on rules of thumb or fixed times
but rather on climatic conditions or site-specific requirements. A
typical workflow is presented in Figure 3.
A built context and a 2D site border are modelled in
Rhinoceros. Next, using Ladybug an Energy plus weather file
(.epw) is imported while we only take into consideration suns for
desired weather conditions (for instance, providing sun access
to surrounding buildings or open areas only during hours when
Figure 3. A typical workflow for generating PSE.
the air temperature is lower than 18°C and the global horizontal
radiation is higher than 500 W/m2 in order to improve thermal
comfort using passive means). The term ‘sun’ is used here to rep-
resent a discrete sun position and refer to additional weather
information such as temperature, radiation, humidity, etc. as
measured by meteorological stations and exported as part of an
.epw file. A visualization of the sun path with filtered suns using
Ladybug is shown in Figure 4. Next, we define different specific
requirements for various building functions (public buildings
might require sun access during the daytime, while residential
buildings might require direct sun access in the mornings and
evenings). Next, we model the surrounding buildings and open
areas in more detail for a more accurate analysis (if the lowest

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Figure 4. Perspective (A) and plan (B) views of a site modelled in Rhinoceros and
a SunPath diagram of filtered suns from Ladybug for temperatures under 18°C and
global horizontal radiation of over 500 W/m2 in Tel Aviv.
height for windows is 1.5 m above ground level and they are
not on all facades, there is no need to provide direct sun access
for the entire building). This is an iterative process which can be
revised during the design process and will be explained in detail
in Sections 4 and 5. We will first explain the calculation method
for the SRE. In the simplest form the calculation consists of one
sun, one test point and one building.
We first extend a projected 2D vector in the horizontal plane
from the sun position through the test point and check for
intersections with the building baseline (Figure 5(A)).
In order to check for intersections between the projected 2D
vector and the building, we first extract the building baselines
for SRE and top lines for SCE (Figure 6). Only if we find such
an intersection we move on to the section analysis (Figure 5(B))
and find the highest point that we can build up to and still
not overshadow any part of the building. This ensures that for
SRE the resulting envelope will not overshadow any part of
the facade.
At its simplest form, the algorithm includes three for loops
running all the possible scenarios between test points, sun posi-
tions and obstacle lines:
for every Point in TestPoints
for every Sun in RelevantSuns
for every ObstacleLine in ObstacleLines
CalculateMaxPointHeight(Point, Sun, ObstacleLine)
ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW 399
Figure 5. Plan and section views of the calculation method for the SRE.
The lowest height generated for every point from all of the
relevant scenarios is used so that the conditions would apply to
all the sun locations and the surrounding buildings. The result
is a three-dimensional array of points of known coordinates
(Figure 7(A)) from which we create a 3D polysurface (Figure 7(B))
which helps with construction and visualization of the closed
solar envelope (Figure 7(C,D)) providing easily quantifiable and
comparable results such as developable volume and maximum
number of floors.
The calculation method for the SCE is similar to the SRE
explained above, with a few important differences. We first
extend a vector from the sun position towards the test point and
check for intersections with the top lines of surrounding build-
ings (Figure 8(A)). If we find such an intersection we move on to
the section (Figure 8(B)) and find the lowest point that we can
build from and allow for solar access. The process is repeated for
all relevant suns, test points and obstacle lines.
Figure 9 shows the developed components in Grasshopper.
Component A takes as inputs a base surface which serves as the
site border, obstacle curves which are the surrounding build-
ing edges, a filtered list of sun vectors from Ladybug’s SunPath
component and a few more configuration parameters and out-
puts a 3D polysurface which is the solar envelope, Component
Figure 6. Extracting base and top building lines used for SRE and SCE, respectively.
 400 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
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Figure 7. The SRE generation process. (A) Point cloud, (B) 3D polysurface, (C) solar envelope and (D) exported solar envelope as standalone object.

B joins several solar envelopes from the previously described

component into one.

4. Parameterization and filters

One of the main advantages of the proposed method lies in the
filtering capabilities of sun positions and different programmatic
requirements which determine the height of each test point.
These include three main categories:

(1) The definition of relevant sun positions based on weather

(2) Sun Vectors which hit the building’s facade at a large hor-
Figure 8. Plan and section views of the calculation method for the SCE.
data: Using data from meteorological stations we can accu-
rately specify the exact conditions for which the envelope
will ensure solar access. The method presented here allows
for sun selection based on but not limited to a time range
(months, days and hours), dry bulb/dew point temperature,
relative humidity, radiation level, wind speed and direction
and any combination of the above according to specific
requirements.
izontal angle of incidence can be neglected due to the
insignificant benefit they may have on solar access and total

Figure 9. The developed Grasshopper components, creating an envelope (left) and combining several envelopes into one (right).

radiation collected on the facade and the potentially signif-
icant reduction on the resulting SV. Figure 10 illustrates this
principle; sun vector B is filtered out due to a large incidence
angle, whereas sun vector A is not due to a small incidence
angle (0° in this example). The angle can be defined by the
user according to the case. More extensive study needs to
be conducted to evaluate the cost and benefits of different
incidence angles on building heating and light access.
(3) Applying different parameters to the surrounding context
such as buildings and parks and combining the resulting
envelopes to one: The definition of solar access is fur-
ther refined by first acknowledging that the context is
not uniform and requires a combination of solar access
requirements. One example of that would be the need to
ensure solar access for different facing facades on differ-
ent times of the day. Another example may take place in
a mixed-use context – an office building does not have
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the same quantitative and qualitative solar access require-
ments as a residential building, a school, a public garden
and so on.
Therefore, by providing adequate solar access to the sur-
roundings based on climate, orientation and use, the envelope
reacts to the environment needs more accurately while main-
taining a maximum achievable volume.
Figure 10. Filtering out suns whose impact is insignificant as a function of a large
horizontal incidence angle.
ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW 401
In the next section we will demonstrate through a case study
the possibilities to accurately determine solar access require-
ments and their significance in the resulting SV.
5. Case study
The selected site is in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel (32N 35E, stan-
dard meridian 30E), and the 3D model used as the base for
the simulation is shown in Figure 10. The area experiences a
Mediterranean climate with hot summers and generally mild,
wet winters. Located in an urban environment with buildings
ranging between one and three floors from the north, east and
south and an open area which contains a parking lot with no spe-
cific sun requirements on the west, it is a good representation of
the usefulness of the proposed method and demonstrates the
importance of taking the context and its specific characteristics
into account when generating solar envelopes. For the sake of
simplicity, the focus is on the SRE, but identical techniques could
be performed to calculate the SCE.
For the aim of the simulation, an EPW weather file from Tel
Aviv Bet Dagan, prepared by the meteorological service, was
used. It is also important to note that in this case all of the facades
of the buildings surrounding the site as shown in Figure 11
were considered as obstacle lines. A solar envelope is first gener-
ated based on the Israeli green standard for Sustainable building
(Green building): requirements for office buildings (The Stan-
dards Institution of Israel 2011). The standard provides different
requirements for solar exposure based on the climatic zone in
which the site is located and offers manual calculation meth-
ods to create a solar envelope, taking into account only several
fixed hours on 21st of December. This serves as the base case
which is later refined by adding additional filters to achieve a big-
ger developable volume while providing solar access for desired
conditions.
The simulated envelopes are generated to comply with the
following solar access conditions:
A. 21st of December from 10.00 to 14.00 (five sun positions).
B. The conditions of envelope A + air temperature under 18°C.
C. The conditions of envelope A + global horizontal radiation
above 472 W/m2 . (A value of 472 W/m2 was chosen as a min-
imum requirement as it represents the radiation on 21st of
December at 14.00. More comprehensive analysis should
be conducted to find a general proposal for a minimum
value.)
D. The conditions of envelope B + the conditions of
envelope C.
A graphical and numerical comparison of the generated
envelopes can be seen from Figures 12 and 13, respectively.
These four simulations begin to show not only the poten-
tial of refining filtering parameters as a basis for achieving big-
ger developable volumes, but also the drawbacks of existing
solar envelope calculation methods and current solar access
regulations.
It is easy to see that the more we refine the initial require-
ments, the more sun hours can be excluded from the calculation,
resulting in bigger volumes. By relying on actual weather data
as opposed to general rules of thumb, the simulation better
 402 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
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Figure 11. The selected area in Tel Aviv. North, east and south of the site are densely built and on the west there is a parking lot which does not require special solar
access requirements.
describes real conditions and planning goals. For the conducted
simulation, envelope D ensures direct sun access for the prede-
fined times (envelope A) in which the air temperature is low and
the global solar radiation is relatively high when solar access is
most needed and is available.
As the initial pool is very small (only five hours out of the
entire year), the risk of producing an envelope which fits the
criteria but will obviously cause problems for other impor-
tant times of the year increases. This is seen in envelopes
A–D, though most evidently in envelope D. This poses a seri-
ous problem concerning loopholes in official regulations try-
ing to ensure sufficient levels of solar access. The requirement
to meet the standard for only a few hours a year is probably
due to the time-consuming task and complexity of manually
calculating solar access as manual techniques quickly become
impractical for complex geometrical configurations and mul-
tiple solar access requirements. To illustrate, if we were to
have 5 sun positions, 10 surrounding buildings and 50 test
points, we would have to run 2500 iterations to calculate a
solar envelope. The standard, which is not a unique example,
illustrates the oversimplification which may lead to an ambigu-
ity regarding the actual solar access for buildings throughout
the year.
While we showed that refining base conditions helps in
achieving bigger developable volumes, to truly take advan-
tage of the method presented in this paper, a second series of
simulations have been conducted showing a more systematic
approach in which the entire year is taken into account and filters
are applied to increase the envelope volume while still providing
direct sun access to the surrounding buildings.
A combination of weather and geometrical filters which were
discussed in Section 4 were set to illustrate the level of detail and
the site-specific inputs that the proposed method supports. The
simulated envelopes are:
A. All year from 08.00 to 20.00 or till sunset.
B. The conditions of envelope A + global horizontal radiation
above 472 W/m2 .
C. The conditions of envelope B + air temperature under 18°C.
D. The conditions of envelope C + sun incidence angle of 45°
using the methodology described in Figure 10.
E. In this scenario the buildings were split into two types:
residential and offices (Figure 14). For residential buildings
direct sun access was required for 08.00–11.00 (3 hours) +
16.00–20.00 (4 hours) in addition to conditions B, C
and D and for office buildings direct sun access was
required for 10.00–17.00 (7 hours) in addition to conditions
B, C and D.
F. The conditions of envelope E + the lowest heights from
which direct sun access is provided were shifted up to
reflect the heights of windows (in the case of the residential
buildings, the heights were shifted 1.5 m from the ground
level) or of more usable areas (in the case of office build-
ings, the heights were shifted 3 m from the ground floor is
usually used as an entrance or a lobby where people only
pass by).
 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW 403
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Figure 12. Four simulated SRE’s. Envelope A produces results similar to previously proposed methods and envelopes B–D include additional filters to achieve a bigger
developable volume.

Figure 15 shows the total yearly amount and dates of the suns
which fit the filtered criteria and used as an input for the different
simulations.
A graphical and numerical comparison of the envelopes can
be seen in Figures 16 and 17, respectively.
As in the previous series of simulations, the more we
refine the boundary conditions, the more the envelope volume
increases. The first major improvement is that instead of tak-
ing five suns which hopefully represent boundary conditions
relevant for the entire year, we are able to directly specify our
desired conditions for the span of an entire year. In that sense

Figure 14. Buildings are divided into two groups – offices and residential. Differ-
ent filtering conditions are required for each of the two building types.

there is a reversal in the workflow between previous methods

Figure 13. A comparison of the volumes of the four simulated SRE’s showing the and the current one in which the creation of a solar enve-
increase in developable volume when including additional filters. lope is determined by the specific conditions relevant for the
 404 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
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Figure 15. A visual representation showing the total amount of filtered suns used in the simulations and their corresponding dates.
site and programme. The example also demonstrates that the
more information we have about the context, the more we can
refine the envelope and ultimately produce bigger volumes with
more accurate results. The filtering principles can be climate
based as in Envelopes B–D, but they can also be further extended
by different building programmes as in Envelope E or by a more
accurate definition of the context requiring sun access as in
envelope F.
6. Comparing different climates
In order to test the sensitivity of the results to different climate
conditions, we conducted a short preliminary study comparing
the results for different climate zones in Israel.
Although Israel is a small country, its climate is variable, clas-
sified according to SI 1045 (ISI 2011) in four climate zones (each
zone represented by a main city for which we show the Heating
Degree Days – HDD):
Zone A – Coastal strip, represented by the city of Tel Aviv (HDD:
543)
Zone B – Inner Coastal Plain and Foothills: represented by the
city of Beer Sheva (HDD: 769)
Zone C – Mountains, represented by the city of Jerusalem (HDD:
1145)
Zone D – Jordan Valley Rift and the Arava, represented by the
city of Eilat (HDD: 242)
Case C from the previous section was simulated with weather
files from the four climate zones in Israel. The simulation includes
an SRE in which the filters are all year from 08.00 to 20.00
or till sunset, air temperature under 18°C and global horizon-
tal radiation above 472 W/m2 . As evidenced by Figure 18, the
resulting volume of the envelopes differs significantly and as
a general rule we see that as the climate is colder, accord-
ing to HDD, and all other conditions remain the same, the
resulting SV is smaller. These results demonstrate that an in-
depth examination for solar access requirements per climate
region and function is required and, such a study, coupled with
building energy simulations to examine and optimize energy
performance effects and developable volume, will be the subject
of following research on the subject.

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Figure 16. Six simulated SRE’s showing the change and increase in total developable volume as we refine the initial criteria.
7. Conclusions
This paper introduces a method for generating parametric solar
rights and solar access envelopes in a dense urban environ-
ment using measured weather data from meteorological sta-
tions. The implementation takes advantage of an advanced and
highly used 3D modelling software among architects and build-
ing energy engineers (Rhinoceros), a graphical programming
interface (Grasshopper) and an open-source weather analysis
tool (Ladybug) to make the method accessible and easy to use
while exposing the user to a highly customized and expandable
interface. The proposed method expands upon past research by
ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE REVIEW 405
taking the built context and yearly weather data into account
instead of relying on general rules. It is also shown that this
method has the potential to offer significant improvements over
previously proposed models, ensuring solar access for desired
conditions for the entire year and as a result maximizing land
use and the project’s feasibility. This paper focuses both on
providing an interface for users to define solar envelopes by a
wide range of filter parameters, and demonstrates the proposed
methodology in a case study. Throughout the research, one of
the main goals was to provide both a theoretical foundation
and a functional and accessible tool for architects and planners
 406 I. G. CAPELUTO AND B. PLOTNIKOV
Figure 17. A comparison of the volumes of the six simulated SRE’s showing the increase in developable volume.
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Figure 18. A comparative analysis of four SRE’s for the same base case using
weather files from Israel’s four climate regions.
which informs and promotes the early design stage. In addition
to providing easy access and an option to use the source code
of the algorithm as a reference for improvements or implemen-
tation in other environments, the hope is that the community
which already uses the suite under which this tool resides will
provide meaningful input and suggestions for both new users
and further development. The tool is written in the Python pro-
gramming language as a custom Grasshopper component and
as mentioned, was recently released as part of Ladybug’s analy-
sis tools suite.
8. Future development
The paper discusses solar envelopes which offer a limited degree
of freedom as they ensure solar access for all the input parame-
ters. A complementary approach would be to develop a model
which simulates envelopes based not on input parameters but
rather on desired results.
In addition to the previously mentioned study comparing
different climates, future development can explore envelopes
which ensure a number of daily hours of direct solar access on
each facade or a minimum accumulative radiation as suggested
by Knowles (1981), but not implemented due to computational
limitations. For such a solution, a bigger pool of possible input
parameters should be provided and a mechanism to estimate
the most beneficial selection from this pool is to be developed.
There are also thoughts regarding integrating an evolution-
ary algorithm such as Octopus (Vierlinger and Grohmann Schnei-
der 2015) in order to provide with even more flexibility in the
input parameters and allowing the user to explore many solu-
tions and choose a preferred tradeoff. Although results obtained
from such an approach might provide insights to the design
process, it is very computationally intensive.
Another field worth exploring makes use of the sky model
introduced by Tregenza (1987) and used in the field of solar
envelopes by Morello and Ratti (2009) taking into account not
only the direct solar access but also the relative contribution
from all patches of the sky. Such a model could potentially pro-
duce results which reflect actual conditions more accurately
as solar gains are obtained accumulatively from all visible sky
patches.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks are due to Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari and Chris Mackey,
the main developers of Ladybug, for providing invaluable advice and sup-
port during the process of development and integration.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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