SMART BUILDING TECHNOLOGY
A Smartengine Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) sensor and scene controller ensure a healthy environment inside Treetops Hospice’s bereavement counselling and therapy centre.
the pineal gland, which secretes the hormone melatonin, which is commonly known as the sleep hormone. The pineal gland responds both to
information it receives concerning the intensity of daylight, and also the nature of the light it receives, with bright short- wave blue light in the morning reducing melatonin secretion – making us alert, and soft, warm fading light in the afternoon and evening – increasing melatonin levels, which eventually sends us off to sleep. Human-centric lighting ensures that this cycle is maintained, while it also has a host of other benefits – because studies have shown that our bodies work best when operating in harmony with our circadian rhythms. One piece of industry research found
that more than half (54%) of staff who worked in an environment with human- centric smart LED lighting felt more energised, while just under half (47%) said they were sleeping better as a result. By contrast, working under traditional, harsh, unrelenting neon strip lighting all day long makes it harder for people to go to sleep later, and subsequent lack of sleep is associated with health problems including diabetes, obesity, depression, cardiovascular disease, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Ability to change colour temperature Our human-centric lights at Treetops promise to deliver these benefits, and can also be used to complement the activities within the centre by changing the colour temperature to match whatever the young people are doing. Much of the therapy at Treetops is non-verbal and designed for children who have been significantly affected by the traumatic bereavement of a parent, carer, or sibling. The facility’s non-talking therapy programme, called the Mollitam Project, offers eight weeks of group therapy for young people aged between eight and 17, during which they can take part in expressive activities such
52 Health Estate Journal August 2024
A Scenariio engineer installs a smart sensor during the BBC Children in Need DIY SOS: Big Build.
as animal therapy, drumming, art, yoga, and complementary therapy. These activities have been found to
be extremely useful for young people who struggle to find the ways to talk about their emotions through words, or who would find the idea of one-to-one counselling too daunting. They thus get to express themselves in other ways, and the bereavement centre can facilitate this. If the tasks require concentration, focus, and active engagement, the blue-white light, which encourages alertness, can be employed, whereas if the therapist wants to create a warm and relaxed atmosphere, the lights can be tuned so that they emit a mellower white-shade to relax and de- stress participants. This functionality would work well in other healthcare settings, where warm light could be used to relax a patient as they enter a consulting room before it is switched to blue/white light when the specialist needs to carry out an
examination and exchange information. The evidence to support this comes from the non-healthcare sector, where it is increasingly common for firms to use different lighting to suit different tasks, and where global real estate company, CBRE, found that human-centric lighting led to an 18% increase in productivity, and a 12% increase in accuracy among employees.
Daylight harvesting However, there is more. Sensors at Treetops also monitor how much natural light is entering the building so that the brightness of each individual light can be adjusted accordingly. This is daylight harvesting – a concept built on the principle that there is no point having a light on full blast if the areas it is illuminating are swathed in sunlight. By dimming lights closest to the window, and increasing the lights’ intensity as the daylight fades later in the day, the
Scenariio was one of dozens of firms to give up its time to construct a new bereavement counselling and therapy centre at Derbyshire’s Treetops Hospice for BBC Children in Need.
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