A school is not simply a building where people spend a few hours of the day. It is a space for relationships, learning and growth, capable of influencing how children and educators experience their daily activities.
In Dordrecht, the Netherlands, IKC Het Kristal was created as an integrated children's centre, where childcare and education come together in an environment designed to support the cognitive and emotional development of new generations.
In this context, light also plays an important role. It must not only enable people to see properly, but also help create comfortable visual conditions throughout the day, adapting to different activities and to the needs of the people using the spaces.
The lighting project, developed with the contribution of 3F Group, reflects this vision through an intelligent system designed in compliance with the Fresh Schools PvE - Class B protocol, the Dutch standard promoting environmental quality in school buildings.
The objective therefore becomes broader: to use light as an integral part of an educational environment designed around people.
Classrooms and common areas are used for very different activities: reading, writing, playing, observing, listening, working together or concentrating individually.
Light must support all these situations without becoming a source of disturbance.
Two 3F Filippi solutions were selected for IKC Het Kristal: 3F Dìagon and 3F Reno with UGR optics, luminaires characterised by uniform light distribution and designed to limit glare.
Luminance control is particularly important in educational environments, where children and teachers spend many hours and continuously alternate between different visual tasks.
Creating balanced lighting conditions therefore helps make spaces more comfortable, easier to read and better suited to concentration, avoiding excessive contrasts or visually intrusive light sources.
Technology thus becomes almost invisible: what remains perceptible is the quality of the environment it helps to create.
The project uses different luminaire configurations to adapt the lighting to the architectural characteristics of the various spaces.
3F Dìagon was installed in the Soft UGR version, both recessed and in the surface-mounted Dìagon P variant, maintaining lighting consistency even with different ceiling types.
The project is completed by white 3F Reno luminaires, equipped with a 200 mm reflector and UGR optics. According to the original project documentation, this configuration contributes to a 95% reduction in glare.
Two different product families are therefore coordinated within the same design language.
The aim is not to make the luminaire the focal point, but to achieve uniform, controlled light that integrates naturally into the architecture and supports children and educators during their different activities.
The quality of light also comes from what is not perceived: glare, discontinuity and visual fatigue.
The most interesting feature of the project emerges when the dimension of time is added to that of space.
Classrooms and common areas are equipped with Tunable White technology, allowing the light to change throughout the day according to different moments and activities.
Light therefore ceases to be a static condition.
Through a Human Centric Lighting approach, lighting can more closely follow the natural progression of the day and support circadian rhythms, helping create favourable conditions for concentration and wellbeing at key moments of school life.
More dynamic light makes it possible to consider not only how much light is needed, but also how and when it should be delivered.
This represents a significant change of perspective: the lighting system is no longer designed solely around the building, but also around the people who use it and the way their needs change throughout the day.
IKC Het Kristal shows how a contemporary educational project can emerge from the integration of different skills and expertise.
Collaboration between the various parties involved, including ESZET Group, a long-standing 3F partner, made it possible to create an environment where light quality, energy efficiency, technology and attention to wellbeing become parts of the same project.
The result is therefore more than simply a correctly illuminated building.
It is a space where visual comfort, glare control and dynamic light help create conditions better suited to the daily activities of children and educators.
Designing lighting for a school inevitably means looking ahead: imagining environments capable of adapting to people, supporting their activities and contributing to the quality of the time spent inside them.
Light designed for the spaces where, every day, people learn, discover and grow.
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