A heliodon with dichromatic lamps for horizontally placed building models

Abstract

Heliodons have been developed to simulate the position of the sun in relation to a building model. Early heliodons (Dufton and Beckett 1931:509) simulated the position of the sun with a movable lamp bulb, impinging light onto a building model which had to be titled and rotated to simulate the required latitude and time. Later heliodons (Olgyay and Olgyay 1957: 22-22; Phillips 1987) improved on operation convenience, allowing the building model to be placed horizontally, and stationary once the latitude is set. Other practitioners (Robbins 1986) examined annual insulation/shading on massing models by putting red, green, blue lamps (i.e. dichromatic lamps) respectively at June, September/ March, December locations of the lamp holder on the D & F heliodon (Dufton and Beckett 1931), thus improving its capability. Aiming at combining the convenience ofplacing physical building models horizontally and stationary, and putting up dichromatic lamps if required, a heliodon has been developed. This paper reports on this heliodon.