SCHOOL MAINTENANCE & DESIGN
Bringing the sunshine into schools with human-centric lighting
to design and maintain these spaces as safe, healthy and inviting as possible for staff and pupils. The aim of it is to support natural active times and rest phases during the course of the day in a meaningful way.
Artificial lighting has long been used to be active at any time of day or night. That this is not always healthy has long been shown by studies with people who work in shifts for example. In recent years, however, new findings were made that prove that natural light plays a much greater role in human well- being than previously assumed, with the light colour being very important.
P
aul Jones, sales director, UK & Ireland at B.E.G. discusses the importance of having the right lighting, taking into consideration the natural circadian rhythm, and the impact this can have within a learning environment
Teachers and students spend most of their time indoors with artificial lighting but research suggests it is really beneficial to adapt it to the circadian rhythm of the user, particularly in an office environment.
Therefore, many schools are looking at ways
Scientists found out that the colour of light controls the human hormone balance and thus sets the human internal clock. Therefore, lighting control now makes use of these findings: Human Centric Lighting places people and their natural biorhythms at the focus of modern lighting control. The effectiveness of light colour on the human biorhythm was only discovered in 2002. Scientists found a third, previously unknown light receptor in the human eye in addition to the already known light receptors (cones and rods for colour and twilight vision). The so-called ganglion cells are sensitive to light and control biological processes in the body such as the pupil reflex or hormone production. One to three percent of the ganglion cells respond to the colour of light, or
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more precisely to the blue component in light. If the blue component is low, the production of the sleep hormone melatonin is triggered - if the blue component is high, the production of the stress hormone cortisol is triggered. The light has a great influence on whether we feel tired or awake. In natural light the blue component varies throughout the day, thus supporting the human biorhythm. At B.E.G. we have been manufacturing lighting control products for more than 40 years in schools and in order to bring this effect to indoor areas, we have developed the PureColour occupancy detector. By controlling the colour of light, it brings the dynamics of daylight
June 2024
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