Whitecroft Lighting has supplied a range of fittings to the new, £18 million state-of-the-art Stroud College in Gloucestershire. Throughout the building, a key criteria for the lighting was that it should provide a comfortable and pleasant working environment for students and staff alike. Whitecroft was chosen for the project for its ability to supply ‘fit for purpose' luminaires for every area of the college, in addition to a full design service.The purpose-built teaching facility, designed specifically for today's educational environment, will accommodate up to 5,000 full and part-time students undertaking a range of further education. The college offers fully equipped specialist workshops for media studies, engineering and construction, as well as spacious studios and workshops for the arts, care and beauty therapy suites and many other specialist facilities. The aim is to offer students excellent facilities, the support of experienced and dedicated staff and an opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills in a friendly and welcoming environment.
As students spend so much of their school days in classrooms this is clearly an area where the overall ambience can make a significant difference to the learning outcomes. Whitecroft's Cascade TSI (Teaching Surface Illumination), a luminaire that lights the horizontal working plane and the vertical teaching surfaces, was chosen for the learning spaces. Cascade TSI has an asymmetric distribution in one quadrant to maximise wall illuminance, whilst the other three quadrants control glare and direct light onto the horizontal working plane. The result is teaching spaces that appear brighter and more natural with increased illumination.
Vector suspended direct/indirect luminaires have been used to create a bright, cheerful ambiance in the Learning Resource Centre of the college. The inherent versatility of Vector allows different proportions of direct and indirect lighting, and at Stroud College in Gloucestershire they are configured to provide 70% direct down lighting and 30% up lighting.
Specialised teaching areas often require a more specialised solution that reflects the activities of the space. In domestic science classrooms, for instance, there are clear health and safety considerations related to hygiene and the increased risk of fire in such spaces. The Hygiene luminaires installed here were designed for food production and clean room applications and offer IP54 protection to prevent any ingress of substances from the ceiling void. This is combined with an easy to clean front face, using a TP(a) fire-resistant diffuser. The luminaires are fitted with T5 lamps to maximise efficiency. Technology rooms had ACF Duralite IP65, anti-corrosive luminaires installed, which have been specially designed with a high impact, polycarbonate diffuser for use in tough environments.
In Circulation Areas, Esprit compact fluorescent down-lighters have been employed to provide an even distribution of illumination, combining low energy with high style, whilst Surface Esprit has been used in the drama spaces.
Another key element of the specification was Whitecroft's Easytest Emergency Self Test System, which was provided throughout on all maintained and non maintained emergency luminaires. Easytest is an intelligent testing module for use with self-contained emergency luminaires that provides a fault diagnostics indicating lamp, battery and charger/inverter module status. The system has three hour emergency durations as standard and the default system tests luminaires weekly and annually, in line with current legislation.
Throughout all areas of the school there is an emphasis on creating a bright and airy ambience that is conducive to high morale and providing the right environment for learning. Wherever possible, maximum use is made of natural daylight, with luminaires designed to dim and ensure required illuminance levels are maintained.
Equal emphasis was given to the total cost of ownership of the lighting installation through selection of luminaires with efficient optics, combined with efficient light sources that offer a long life and extended maintenance cycles. These light sources have been standardised as much as possible to minimise the different types of lamps that have to be held in stock by the maintenance department.
