ABSTRACT Daylighting plays a vital role in reducing building energy demand while ensuring visual and occupant comfort across India's diverse climates. This review synthesizes findings from 31 peer‐reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2025 that analyze daylight performance through climate‐based simulations, optimisation approaches, and field validation. Evidence across major climatic zones and building typologies reveals consistent design patterns and methodological developments. Moderate window‐to‐wall ratios of about 16%–20% repeatedly deliver balanced daylight autonomy and glare control, especially when paired with orientation‐responsive shading. Courtyard configurations and overall building form were found to strongly influence vertical daylight distribution, with optimized height‐to‐width ratios enhancing spatial daylight autonomy by up to 93%. Dynamic shading systems and multi‐objective optimisation frameworks outperform isolated parametric studies by more effectively resolving daylight, glare, and energy trade‐offs, achieving lighting energy savings of roughly 26%. Vegetation layers and surrounding obstructions also affect daylight penetration and glare, though urban‐scale modeling remains limited. Although climate‐based daylight metrics such as sDA, UDI, and ASE are increasingly adopted, cross‐climatic benchmarking, uncertainty analysis, and standardized validation procedures require further development. Emerging human‐centric metrics, including vertical illuminance and circadian performance, show promise but are not yet systematically integrated.
Khaire et al. (Mon,) studied this question.