Studies show students enjoy physical and academic benefits from classrooms that are lit by the sun instead of light fixtures. While school officials hope their plans for a fourth middle school will generate a lot more light than heat in the political sense, Mike Nicklas and Gary Bailey are determined to make that literally true. The 20-year old company has spent the last several years concentrating on daylit schools and now have seen 10 of their designs built for Wake and Johnston Counties. A daylit school goes beyond the use of skylights and atriums. It virtually turns the roof itself into one big diffusion screen.
Proponents say the design yields a more even, full light throughout the classrooms.
Innovative Design was recently hired to work with Chapel Hill architects Corley, Redfoot, Zack, on the new middle school slated to be built on a 45-acre university owned tract on Homestead Road. Nicklas said he has become a true believer in the benefits of sunshine, which provides light in a much broader spectrum than artificial lighting systems. Daylight is about one-third cooler than the florescent lighting most schools have. In the South, where a major cost is in cooling the building, that can make a big difference in energy efficiency, he said. But it wasn't until Bailey and Nicklas read over a set of studies from Canada that the other benefits of full-spectrum lighting became clear.