Il Pellicano Schools were founded in Bologna in 1989, when a group of parents created a cooperative dedicated to supporting educational initiatives. Today, the organisation welcomes more than 450 children across Il Pellicano Primary School, Minelli Giovannini Nursery School and Cristo Re Nursery School.
Its educational approach is built around several key elements — Reason, Space, Time, Body, English, Manual Skills and Music — and it was precisely the idea of Space that led the Board and teachers to ask how the learning environment could become even more functional and better suited to children’s everyday needs.
This reflection gave rise to the lighting refurbishment project. Light therefore became part of the educational environment not simply as a technical component, but as a way to make spaces clearer, more comfortable and better suited to learning activities.
The project involved a complete relamping of the buildings, replacing the previous fluorescent system with 3F Filippi LED solutions. The work was carried out with E-Wide, a company within the Tremagi Group, with the goal of improving both lighting quality and energy efficiency.
In a school, however, good lighting means much more than simply increasing illuminance levels. Walls display teaching materials, ceilings influence the perception of the room, work surfaces need to remain comfortable to read for many hours, while corridors, gyms and technical rooms each have different requirements.
The challenge was therefore to create a system able to deliver uniform lighting, visual comfort and safety throughout the complex, while meeting the latest requirements for educational environments.
For the classrooms, Zero 3F was selected to provide a high level of lighting uniformity across the surfaces. In a learning environment, this means not focusing only on desks, but also ensuring good visibility of walls, boards and all the materials used for everyday visual communication.
In corridors and technical rooms, 3F Zeta was chosen to increase illumination on the floor plane, helping make circulation safer and more comfortable for pupils, teachers and staff.
In the gyms, 3F Linda provides the robustness and long service life required for sports activities, while supporting clear recognition of people and objects. The remaining spaces use 3F LED Panel, whose adjustable luminous flux allows the lighting level to be adapted to different needs.
Different products, but one shared design principle: giving every space the light best suited to its function.
The transition to LED technology delivered an immediately measurable result: more than a 50% reduction in energy consumption compared with the previous fluorescent installation.
The value of the intervention, however, goes beyond efficiency. The new system provides lighting levels on work surfaces in line with the updated UNI EN 12464-1 requirements, together with improved uniformity on walls and ceilings — particularly important in educational environments where teaching material is displayed across many surfaces.
The specified light sources are also exempt from photobiological risk and do not emit IR or UV components. The result is brighter, more uniform light suited to spaces occupied for many hours every day.
The Il Pellicano Schools project shows how a lighting upgrade can simultaneously improve the quality of the environment, people’s wellbeing and energy performance.
Every choice was based on how the spaces are actually used: from concentration in the classroom to safety in the corridors, from physical activity in the gym to the more flexible requirements of service areas.
Light thus becomes part of the concept of Space that the schools consider central to their educational approach: not simply a container for activities, but an element that supports growth, relationships and everyday learning.
A project in which efficiency and technical quality find their most tangible meaning in improving the daily life of everyone who experiences the school.
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