Turkish D-light : accentuating heritage values with daylight

Historic buildings have their own cultural identity, which is often related to their aesthetic qualities such as period characteristics (geometry, size, colour, form and shape), materials and construction. Daylight is one of the primary elements contributing to the distinctiveness of the visual environment of many historic buildings, but is rarely considered as one of the components that shape the character of a building when adaptive preservation schemes of historical buildings are planned. Many historic buildings were originally designed to accommodate activities different to their new use and preserving the quality of daylight that originally contributed to their visual identity is a challenging task. Maintaining the ‘day-lit appearance’ of a building can be particularly problematic if the building is to be used as a museum or a gallery owing to the artefacts’ conservation requirements. This work investigated the opportunities of maintaining the original ambient conditions of renovated historical buildings while meeting the required daylight levels of the proposed new use. The study utilised an annual daylight simulation method and hourly weather data to preserve daylight conditions in renovated historic buildings. The model was piloted in a Turkish bathhouse situated in Bursa, Turkey, that is currently under renovation. The simulation model produces 4483 hourly values of daylight illuminance for a period of a whole year using the computer program Radiance. It is concluded that daylight characteristics should be taken into account when developing a renovation scheme. With increasing pressure on valuing historic buildings in many parts of the world, the work reported here should be beneficial to those concerned with the conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The study findings could also be useful to those interested in predicting potential energy savings by combining daylighting and electric lighting in historic buildings

Comparison of Postfire Seeding Practices for Wyoming Big Sagebrush

Wildfires in the Great Basin have resulted in widespread loss of Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt. ssp. wyomingensis Beetle & Young), an ecologically important shrub that has proven difficult to establish from seed. We sought to identify optimal seeding practices for Wyoming big sagebrush in the context of postfire seeding operations involving rangeland drills. In an experiment replicated at three burned sites in the northern Great Basin, we compared Wyoming big sagebrush establishment across treatments differing by seed delivery technique, timing, and rate of seed application. A seed mix containing bunchgrasses was drill-seeded in alternate rows using one of two drill-types (conventional or minimum-till), and a mix containing sagebrush was either delivered by drill to the soil surface in remaining rows or broadcast by hand (simulating aerial seeding) following drilling in fall or winter. Drill-delivery of sagebrush seed was accompanied by drag chains (conventional drill) or imprinter wheels (minimum-till drill) to improve seed-soil contact and was carried out at multiple seeding rates (ca. 50,250, and 500 pure live seed m-2). During 2 yr following seeding, sagebrush establishment was lower at two sites (yr 1: ≤ 1.2 plants m-2; yr 2: ≤ 0.8 plants m-2) compared with a third site (yr 1: ≤ 4.1 plants m-2; yr 2: ≤ 2.0 plants m-2) where treatment differences were more pronounced and significant. Wherever density differed between treatments, it was consistently higher in certain treatment levels (minimum-till > conventional drill, drill-delivery > broadcast-delivery, fall broadcast > winter broadcast, and higher rates > lower rates). Densities declined between years at two sites, but we did not find evidence that declines were due to densitydependent mortality. Results indicate that seeding success can likely be enhanced by using a minimum-till imprinter seeding method and using seeding rates higher than typical postfire seeding recommendations for Wyoming big sagebrush. © Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management.The Rangeland Ecology & Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information