On the issue of standardizing insolation of residential and public buildings (literature review)

Insolation is a critical factor affecting a person’s psychophysiological state and ensuring residential safety. In the Russian Federation, compliance with insolation standards is enshrined in law, and the presentation of insolation duration calculation results is a mandatory requirement for design documentation. However, the question of revising or abolishing the hygienic standard for the duration of insolation is increasingly being raised as it has lost its relevance and is restricting the density and height of development. The purpose of this study was to review domestic and international insolation standards and analyze and systematize the main issues arising during hygienic assessments of insolation in residential and public buildings. The review materials included regulatory and methodological documents available in the reference systems TechExpert, ConsultantPlus, and Garant, as well as foreign regulatory documents, as well as domestic and international publications indexed in the search engines PubMed, Scopus, CyberLeninka, and eLIBRARY.RU. An analysis of domestic regulatory documents from 1963 to the present has revealed a significant decline in hygienic standards for insolation (shortened regulatory periods, shorter durations, and intermittent insolation regimes) and, as a result, the potential for higher building density and heights compared to mandatory minimum European standards. This has led to a discussion of current standards as ineffective and inadequate. It is noted that exposure to sunlight is assessed as an important criterion for the quality of the indoor environment; however, in-depth studies are required to substantiate the minimum required insolation of premises.

Contributions:
Kriyt V.E. – research concept; editing;
Sladkova Yu.N., Shmarov I.A. – research design; text writing;
Sladkova Yu.N., Shmarov I.A., Volchkova O.V. – research design; material processing.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: April 17, 2026 / Accepted: July 1, 2026 / Published: September 28, 2026

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