Lighting for kindergartens/daycare center
Kindergartens are not only childcare facilities for children, but also their second home. As with the lighting in your own home, well thought-out lighting design is of great importance for nursery schools. Nursery lighting not only supports a healthy daily routine for the little ones and their carers, but is also an important safety element. In this blog post, you can find out which lighting is suitable for daycare centers and how to carry out successful lighting design.
Lighting for nurseries: more than just a light!
Our children have only taken their first steps, spoken their first words and made their first friends in daycare centres. A nursery is not just a playhouse, but a place for experiences and discoveries. Children are given the foundations for their lives here and experience their first pangs of separation from their parents. A good lighting concept in daycare centres is more than just a banal lighting design. The luminaires give the children a feeling of safety, are important for their health and support their everyday activities as well as the day-to-day work of the nursery teachers.
Natural daylight, the ideal light source for nurseries!
Natural daylight is considered to be the healthiest source of light for humans, animals and plants. Even when designing kindergartens, care is taken to ensure that the children receive sufficient daylight. Daylight supports a healthy circadian rhythm and supplies the body with healthy minerals such as vitamin D, which it needs for its development.
Even though it would be ideal to illuminate the daycare centre exclusively with natural daylight, weather conditions do not always permit this or there are rooms that receive little daylight. Artificial lighting therefore comes into play in every area of use.
What regulations are there for the lighting of nurseries?
Kindergarten children are at a stage in their lives when they still have to learn colours. This is only possible if the right lighting is available. To support this development and, above all, to ensure a safe environment, a number of rules have been laid down that lighting designers need to take into account.
According to the EN 12464-1 and DIN 5035 standards, which define the requirements for lighting, the luminaires in daycare centres should provide an illuminance of at least 300 lux, the glare (UGR) should be <19 or <22 and the RA value should be above 80 for perfect colour rendering. The luminaires should also be flicker-free.
The general rule for lighting in nurseries is that the important needs of children must be taken into account. Human Centric Lighting (HCL) offers a perfect lighting solution for nurseries. The lighting should support the children's healthy daily routine with the appropriate light colour and challenge their sense of sight with the help of suitable colour rendering.
Correctly illuminating daycare centres
Now that you know how important good lighting is for nurseries, you would like to find out more about which lighting solutions are best suited for nurseries. Which lamps are suitable for nurseries? And which light colour is best?
Creating well-being!
Indirect lighting emit light evenly and without contrast into the room. This is important for the well-being of the little occupants. LED panels, recessed LED spotlights or LED downlights are ideal for this purpose.
The protection class of the lamps must also be taken into account in this area of application. Broken luminaires are not only frightening for children, but also pose a risk of injury for you and the carers. The luminaires should therefore have adequate impact protection to prevent breakage by children's toys. For lighting in nurseries, we recommend a protection class from IK5.
In addition to indirect lighting, which provides uniform light distribution, direct light should also be used. This helps to direct the children's attention to certain corners or toys. Our LED spotlights are ideal for this purpose.
Product recommendations:
Creating an inviting atmosphere with the right light colour:
Light colours have certain effects on people's behaviour. Depending on the colour temperature chosen, the light can convey a sense of security and make the illuminated space appear inviting or create a relaxed atmosphere. It is important that a nursery is both inviting and relaxing. A warm white light temperature is well suited for the main areas. Secondary areas, e.g. the kindergarten manager's office, can be illuminated with cool white light if there is no natural daylight.
Flexible light colour and light intensity thanks to the dimmable function:
Lighting management should support the pedagogy of early childhood development and its natural daily rhythm. In day-care centres, daily routines are usually alternating. In addition to playing, learning or doing handicrafts, young children need enough rest time. Most daycare centres offer bedtimes for this purpose. In order to guarantee these special daily routines, it is important to consider the appropriate light intensity and light colour in the lighting management. The dimmable function of many LED lights helps you to adjust the intensity and colour of the lights as required.
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Angéle - last updated march 2024