The present application relates to an optical body, a wall member, a fitting, a solar shading device, and a building. More particularly, the present technology relates to an optical body for directionally reflecting incident light.
Recently, there have been increased the cases of coating layers to reflect the sunlight on wall surfaces of various buildings, such as high-rise buildings and housings. Such a trend represents one of energy-saving measures with the view of preventing global warming, and it is intended to reduce a load of cooling equipment for buildings, which load is increased with solar energy, i.e., the sunlight, being absorbed by the wall surfaces of the buildings and raising the temperature in the buildings.
Further, when the sunlight incoming from the sky and impinging against the wall surface of a building is specularly (regularly) reflected, the reflected light may reach other buildings and the ground in the nearby outside where the light is absorbed and converted to heat, thus raising the ambient temperature. Accordingly, a local temperature rise occurs in the surroundings of the building. This gives rise to the problems that, in urban areas, a heat island phenomenon is accelerated and grass does not grow in areas irradiated with the reflected light.
As one example of techniques of coating the layers for reflecting the sunlight on the wall surfaces of the buildings, there is proposed a technique of forming a reflecting layer on corner cubes such that incident light is retroreflected by the reflecting layer (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-322313).