The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently published new guidance documents for designing circadian-effective lighting in K-12 classrooms and hospital patient rooms while avoiding increased energy use.
“With increased importance given to the health-related effects of lighting in many applications – especially in education and healthcare – the design community finds itself with a new challenge of delivering sufficient vertical illuminance for circadian stimulation without dramatically increasing lighting power demand,” said Charles Jarboe, a research scientist at the LRC and one of the lead authors of the guidance documents, in the press release. “But providing energy-efficient and healthy lighting does not have to be an either-or proposition.”
The guidance documents provide background information and summaries of recent research into the benefits of lighting for circadian entrainment for K-12 students and hospital patients. The primary aim of the publications is to offer guidance for achieving effective, healthy lighting solutions in both applications while limiting increased energy use to the greatest extent possible.
For more information, download the full document guides or read the original press release.