from the ground up - The Tyee

tec, who designed and built the school, decided thiswasn’t enough to get the energy-saving benefits ofnatural light, and opted to go with three times as manywindows for the school.But it wasn’t just to save energy -- they were alsoaware that natural light just looks nicer than artificial.“This is a fantastic school for access to daylight,” saysRebecca Holt, sustainability specialist for Stantec.“I think being able to see what’s going on outside andhave real daylight rather than artificial light makes fora much nicer quality, too.”The pleasing aesthetics of natural light is an area JenniferVeitch has devoted her career to studying.“In a space that is well day-lit we have better knowledgeof what’s going on outside and a connection,both to the passage of time and to exterior conditions,so you know if it’s cloudy or sunny, is it raining orwhat-not, and people like that sense of connectivenessto the outdoors,” says Veitch, a senior researchofficer in lighting for the National Research Council’sInstitute for Research in Construction.Veitch studies the effects of office lighting on people,and says many report feeling healthier when exposedto natural light, as compared to electric light. Shecites a 2003 study by the Heschong Mahone Group,a California-based green-building consultant firm,which found elementary school classrooms with themost daylight saw a 21 per cent improvement in productivitycompared to students in classrooms that hadno daylight.Fellow lighting researcher Mark S. Rea of the RensselaerPolytechnic Institute conducted research in2010 in North Carolina where Grade 8 students woreorange, short-wave light-blocking glasses to schoolone week, and not the next week. When students worethe glasses their sleep onset was delayed, and theyweren’t getting adequate sleep to prepare them forschool.“The results presented here are the first to show,outside laboratory conditions, that removal of shortwavelengthlight in the morning hours can delayDLMO in 8th-grade students. These field data, consistentwith results from controlled laboratory studies,are directly relevant to lighting practice in schools,”reads the study.Breathe easierPart of attaining LEED Silver status means using materialswith low volatile organic compounds (VOCs)only. Everything from the glue, to the paint, to anycoatings could only have a certain amount of VOCs-- which cause everything from “new paint smell” toeye irritation and respiratory problems -- before pointswould be deducted.“Essentially you get very, very little off-gassing, andit protects the people who are applying the products,as well as the people who are living in the buildingafter that,” says Holt.Another credit required a two-week flushing of theventilation system using outside air, flushing out anyconstruction materials, emissions or dust left behind,before anyone could enter the building.“It makes for a much, much better indoor environment.And you just don’t get that smell that you dowhen you get fresh paint and you come into a newbuilding, that smell you’re getting is VOCs,” Holttold The Tyee.Green buildings weren’t always known for their pristineair quality. Efforts to make more energy-efficientbuildings in the 1970s resulted in airtight buildings,where designers attempted to prevent any air fromescaping the building in order to save on heating andcooling, but didn’t allow for the circulation of cleanair to breathe. This was known as “sick building syndrome.”“What they did was they were trying to reduce infiltrationrates, and there are changes per hour, so theysealed them very tight. But then of course nobodycould breathe,” says John Robinson, executive directorof the UBC sustainability initiative.“The department of the environment buildings inHull, Quebec, were at a place called Les Terrasses dela Chaudiere, I believe, and anyway the joke was LeTerrace de Shoddy Air, because the air quality was sobad.”56