Category

Region

Natural Learning

Natural Learning

Category
Daylight in buildings - Region 2: Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Students
Tasneem Hemora
Saryah Khalifa

School
University of Sharjah

Country
United Arab Emirates

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Warri, Nigeria faces power shortages often leading to electricity cuts where about 40.7% of the Nigerian population does not have stable electricity. This is a major problem for schools and impacts the learning ability of students and reduces time spent learning as light is vital to learning, which is more serious when considering special needs schools as inadequate lighting may cause and trigger harmful effects in students with certain syndromes.Our design considers these common difficulties and struggles faced by schools especially special needs schools and the various benefit of natural daylight on the physical and mental health of students, such as improving mood, promoting motivation, reducing melancholy and anxiety. It aims to maximize the usage of sunlight to ensure that students can learn and have their needs met with uniform and well distributed light throughout the school building, during the school day.It consists of strategically placed windows, reflective louvers and sun tunnels with considerations of the orientation, climate and the light entering the space throughout the day as well as they necessary amount of light needed in each space using standard lux level of 300. These are meant to reflect and diffuser light to ensure it spreads deeper into the room while reducing direct sunlight to control the level of daylight entering the space. Colored louvers are used to supply daylight in a multitude of colors based on the purpose of the rooms as they can be beneficial by promoting different emotions and can help calm down students with different syndromes, as each syndrome can lead to varying reactions to colors. Artificial lights are placed around the classrooms to ensure sufficient light is available even when the weather and sky conditions do not allow sufficient daylight to enter.This design lowers the dependency on electricity for light which is a necessity in schools by maximizing daylight usage across the building through the design. Thus, resolving a major issue facing Nigerian schools and more broadly buildings without reliable electricity by ensuring that they are functional and usable even with electricity shortages.