School of soft daylight / 2018

THE DAYLIGHT SCHOOL OF SOFT LIGHT reconciles optimal lighting conditions conducive to concentration and limiting students’ fatigue with a friendly interior microclimate obtained with low energy consumption. The school ensures the proper development of the child, which promotes individual creativity and at the same time builds social relations between different age groups and the entire LOŠBATES community. Despite the large cubature of the building significantly exceeding all the sites in the area, the building is part of the landscape because from most directions it can be perceived as a complex of ground floor buildings.

The building is located in the northern part of the site, due to which all class windows have a view of the forest wall. The space between classes and the forest is called the band of silence. A green wall obscures the view of the road and parking lots next to it. The study gardens (herbal, flower and ornamental grass) are located between the wall and the classroom windows, nurtured by students as part of the didactic process. Individual parts of the garden are divided into recreational zones. You can conduct outdoor activities on wooden terraces adjacent to the “basic level”. The view of the garden and walls of the forest is intended to encourage students to concentrate and remain active during lessons.

On the south side, there is an “entrance park” and sports grounds. The surface of the ground is raised gently to the level of the second floor. High school students can go directly to a green recreation area with a closed, distant view of Louňovice and ecological areas behind KutnoHorska. On slopes leading towards the pitches and treadmill, sitting benches are to be implemented. This terrain allows students of both levels to have direct access to green recreational areas. At the same time, raising the ground from the south limits, optically, the height of the building to one storey, creating a “village on the hill”.

Human beings as visual species take in through their eyes about 80% of the information relevant to their decisions and behavior, therefore the quality of light, especially in educational facilities as schools, plays a more important role than is generally recognized. The aim of good lighting design must therefore be to see comfortably and to provide the users (pupils, teachers) with the precise amount of information to direct their attention and further the process of perception.

Although high levels of illuminance (promoted by the lighting industry) support functional visibility that is by no means enough to ensure visual comfort and a pleasing ambience. Daylight is superior to artificial light as humans have evolved in outdoor environments for hundreds of thousands of years and have developed their vision in very close relationship to it. It has been proposed that daylight should be the main means of illumination and only substituted with artificial lighting if necessary – for example during the winter season when there is not enough daylight outdoors.

As human beings have evolved under the varying daylight conditions which impact us even today, the concept of THE DAYLIGHT SCHOOL OF SOFT LIGHT emerged. The locations of various spaces in the building have been designed according to the appropriate lighting supporting their function. Collaboration with a lighting designer was of great importance to the design proposal, as lighting design cannot be supplied at a later date but can only be conceived parallel to the architectural planning.

The optimal use of natural light is today a decisive criterion of planning and a success factor for every construction project. Intelligent daylight concept leads to sustainable, energy-efficient solution.

The general lighting to the gymnasium is provided by diffused daylight from the north-facing clearstories in a sawtooth roof and if required due to the time of the day or season, supplemented by mean of artificial lighting (ball proof LED linear lighting with diffuser positioned underneath the structural beams). The LED luminaires are activated and slowly and gradually made brighter only when the available daylight is not sufficient. This system will maintain a constant level of lighting. Standard illuminance requirements vary according to the sports type (football, handball, basketball and other collective sports).

Uniform horizontal illuminance throughout the hall is important for ensuring a clear view of the entire playing area.
Light can obtain an optical presence only when it is reflected by the surface of an object and appear on the retina of the human eye. This makes the luminance (L) in candela per square meter (Cd/m2) the real basis of visual perception in our environment: this is what we actually perceive as brightness, the measure of the impression of brightness the eye has from a luminous or illuminated surface.

The presented luminance levels achieved, has been calculated for two specific dates in the year, on 21st of June (summer solstice) and on 21st of December (winter solstice).The solstices mark the beginning of the astronomical summer or the astronomical winter. The time during the day was set for 9 am (morning) and 12 pm (midday) accordingly.