Visual comfort refers to the lighting conditions to ensure optimal clarity inside a building (office, classrooms, homes, etc.). Good natural lighting helps create a comfortable indoor atmosphere and also reduces the building’s energy consumption. However, modern architecture focuses on the aesthetic aspect of lighting in the building to the detriment of its energy performance. The objective of this study is to propose a skylight system in a so-called «blind» room in order to reduce daytime energy consumption. For this, a bibliographic study was carried out on the concepts of lighting and visual comfort in order to retain solar tubes for their ease of implementation. The lighting, both indoor and outdoor, is simulated with and without skylights in the DIALux evo 10.1 software. The simulation results of this study revealed that the building could have better visual comfort and sufficient illumination, equivalent to at least 300 lux, according to the NF EN 12464-1 standard, with daylight by integrating a solar tube. A prototype skylight was made of cardboard and validated the simulation results giving an average illumination of 490 lux for a FLJ = 1.13%. We then note a reduction in energy consumption of 108 kWh/year corresponding to a financial saving of 21,600 FCFA/year and 77.76 kgCO2eq avoided each year, for this room only.

This study looked at global comfort in a classroom in a tropical climate. Based on surveys and in situ data collection, the hierarchical multi-criteria analysis method was used to establish a model of the global comfort indicator. The weights obtained for each of the comfort components truly reflect the needs in terms of global comfort in a classroom in a tropical climate, with a high level of hygrothermal comfort, a high level of visual comfort and acoustic comfort, and a low level of olfactory comfort. The global comfort index for classrooms in a tropical climate, I_GSC, has been established and will be used as a tool for predicting global comfort in classrooms.