Erickson McGovern Architecture News Details
- High Performance Schools - 05/06/2007
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Erickson McGovern is currently designing two high performance elementary schools for the Bethel School District. As part of the Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol, these elementary schools are designed to be energy efficient as well as being great spaces for learning. One element of the design that has been shown to create a better learning environment through increased test scores and reduced absenteeism is a good daylighting scheme. With this in mind, the classrooms of both elementary schools are designed to maximize the daylight.
In order to ensure that the design of the classrooms had the best possible daylighting, we enlisted the help of the Seattle Lighting Design Lab to analyze and test a few of our design ideas. The lighting lab tested three models with different window and roof configurations to determine the best scheme for distributing daylight evenly throughout the classrooms. Each model was placed in the overcast sky with a series of light sensors that measure how much daylight penetrates into different areas of the classroom. The overcast sky gives relatively accurate results of the daylight levels that we could expect to see in the classrooms on an overcast day. An overcast day is used as the benchmark measurement because it is the worst case scenario. If our classrooms are designed to have enough daylight on an overcast day, they will have even higher light levels on a sunny day.
The Lighting Design Lab also tested the models on the heliodon to see how the building would perform under clear or sunny conditions. The heliodon is basically a pivoting table with a large spotlight that simulates the light of the sun. On the heliodon, one can watch the sun move through the space of the model at different times of the day and in different months of the year. The goal is to minimize the penetration of direct sun into the space to reduce heat gain and increase the visual comfort of the occupants of the space by decreasing glare from the sun.
Our three models performed very well. The overcast sky study showed that the daylight was very evenly distributed over the classroom in the three different schemes. The light levels were a bit lower than we would like, so we altered the design by increasing the size of the windows to increase the light levels in the classrooms. The heliodon study showed that our light shelves and exterior shades were doing a good job in protecting the space from direct sun in the summer months.