A review of the development of daylighting in schools

Abstract

This paper reviews the progress of daylighting in school buildings. It examines the publications that discuss daylighting design for school buildings in early 1874. It also traces the developments of the open-air school movement from 1900 up to the 1930s and describes research at the present day in the context of an emphasis on environmental factors defining healthy and comfortable buildings for education. The regulations and standards of lighting in schools in the different periods in Britain are summarized. The review reveals that there is a need to examine the relationships between the responses of school occupants and the quantity of daylighting. The conclusion of the paper gives an overall summary of daylighting in schools and identifies gaps in current knowledge. In addition, it provides the authors’ opinions for future lighting research in schools.