Back to School with Daylighting

Back to School with Daylighting

By Randy Reid with Katie Smith

With the end of COVID protocols and schools returning to normal, it can be a hard adjustment for young children who have spent the past two years learning from home or in limited spaces. Creating a bright, joyful school building can change the attitude on the return to school, and the beginning of a post-COVID life. Lam Partners did a phenomenal job at doing just that, curating a place for children and teachers to find peace and joy in a learning environment. Justin Brown of Lam Partners walked me through the process of flexing their daylighting muscle in the new Fales Elementary School in Westborough, Massachusetts.

The two-level elementary school includes a beautifully daylit reading room, complete with pendant lights, recessed linear uplights and linear fixtures throughout, all in 3500K. The Portfolio pendant lights, which are 6 inches in diameter and 12-14 inches tall, are placed strategically throughout the reading room to allow for not only creative placement but also for task lighting. Along the sawtooth roof lies the wall recessed asymmetrical uplights from Amerlux. Justin stated, “Their job is to light the angled ceiling, mainly for the evening when we don’t have daylight.” The Amerlux linear luminaires also supply a general base coat of lighting for the room, allowing for the pendants to be the star of the show.

Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek Art Works Inc.

The entire school has continuous daylight dimming which is centered around photocells, and the lights dim in response to the daylight received. If a cloud blocks the light, the indoor lighting has a delayed response to ensure that light output isn’t changing unnecessarily. The threshold of the photocells is set in such a way that a passing quick cloud can be ignored. However, Justin mentions that small perceivable changes in light levels are natural and help us to connect to the outdoor environment. Typically, the sensitivity of the photocells is left up to the commissioning agent.

The entire school has continuous daylight dimming which is centered around photocells, and the lights dim in response to the daylight received.

There is a lower reading room which has a much shorter ceiling, so Justin emphasized the importance of creating visual interest through lighting, something that he claims to be fun and whimsical, where the large circular lights hang lower. These lights not only allow for direct lighting below, but also for indirect lighting by reflecting on the ceiling to make the space feel expanded while granting a soft glow for task lighting below. LED technology gives the ability to design with playful geometrical shaped lighting as opposed to strict, linear layouts.

Corridors of the school are just as whimsical and exciting as the reading room. Hallways meet in intersections and each corridor begins with large, surface-mounted fixtures from Prudential Lighting, in a round shape that get smaller as you walk down the hall. These hallways act as a fun area for children in passing, but also have a linear light in the corridor concourses that provide a base layer of light in these rooms as well.

Most of the classrooms feature Startek Lighting linear fixtures that help create a comfortable space for the children while in class. This lighting is non-distracting, and acts as a subtle means to lengthen the room, while still lighting the room brightly. The seemingly randomly placed windows allow for natural lighting in the room and create a welcoming feeling.

One of the most impressive parts of the space is designed using the Solatube Daylighting System. The Solatubes run from the roof through the ceiling. Lam Partners created a series of custom flared, drywall caps, made of molded GFRG for each tube, allowing the natural daylight to be directed to the lower level of the building. These custom caps create a place for daylight to splash around and become diffused in the gymnasium, interior work rooms, and other parts of the lower level of the building. Arguably one of the most exciting and unique elements of design in the building, these create a bright and airy space in the areas that lack windows for natural lighting.

Justin stated that the project was exciting because they had the opportunity to get in early on the building process. By using building orientation to maximize exposure to daylight the team was able to take advantage of natural daylighting. In addition to the solar panels on the roof, the school utilizes geothermal wells for pre-heating and pre-cooling. These techniques allow the school to be one, if not the only, public school in Massachusetts that is negative net zero, generating 11.6% more power than it consumes.

The project began in October of 2018, and was completed in April of 2020. One of the biggest challenges included finding the balance between functionality and cost, but this nineteen-month project ultimately turned into a brightly lit, low energy environment.

Navigating the basis of design fixtures on public school bids can be challenging as anyone is allowed by state law to bid on projects. Lam Partners spends a lot of time evaluating alternative fixtures to ensure they meet the original specification. Justin emphasized Lam’s excellent relationships with all rep agencies in their market, and how they get out ahead of the VE process.

“In the construction document phase, we are working with rep agencies to get alternate packages. At the end of CD phase, we list the preferred luminaire and the alternates,” Justin explained. “We pre-build the alternate package, so when the substitution package comes through, there are no surprises as we have already seen it.”

The team at Lam Partners set out to design a healthy environment for the children. The lighting at Fales Elementary is beautiful, playful and energetic and provides an enjoyable space in which to learn. ■

Architect: HMFH Architects

Lighting Designer: Lam Partners

Fixture Schedule:

Amerlux (Fino): Embedded recessed linear fixtures.

Startek Lighting: Pendants linear fixtures

Prudential Lighting (Sky): Large Dome Lighting sky fixtures

Solatube Daylighting System: Daylighting

Cooper Lighting Solutions (Portfolio): Round Pendants

Cooper Lighting Solutions (Neo-Ray): Recessed Linear