Lighting plays key role at state-of-the-art university building

The Jan Mouton Learning Centre is a contemporary, multifunctional learning and teaching facility on the central campus of Stellenbosch University. The building is located on the knuckle of the primary campus circulation routes, and houses state-of-the-art technological groupwork infrastructure for future orientated lectures, streaming, conferencing, and classes.

“Despite advances in technology and the rapid developments in distance learning, there will always be a need for personal interaction while learning. This centre, with its various lecture rooms, breakaway rooms and big open spaces, makes interaction so much easier," says Prof Stan du Plessis, Chief Operating Officer at SU.

Work on the centre, which accommodates more students than any other current teaching space on the SU campus, started in October 2017 opened to all SU students on 15 March 2021.

According to Du Plessis, the classrooms and auditorium are equipped with state-of-the-art smart technology, which will furthermore “enable students to be connected to cyberspace seamlessly," and add to an improved learning environment.

The centre also has a low carbon footprint, which includes a greywater system that serves the ablutions. Group-work classrooms respectively seating 350, 270 and 150 will provide the flexibility for lecturers and students to adapt their environment to facilitate discussion and teamwork.

Another huge advantage is that the Jan Mouton Centre was designed according to the principles of universal access, ensuring that people with disabilities can use the whole facility, its restrooms, auditorium and classrooms with ease. “The new centre sets the benchmark for future development of buildings on campus. The learning spaces were specifically designed to cater for the modern pedagogies developed around interactive and hybrid learning.

“The Jan Mouton Centre will also expand our physical learning environment, which will in turn enhance our learning and teaching capacity. It will be providing a bigger and better space, where future learning will take place and make the University even more accessible to more visitors," says Du Plessis.

Unlike most academic buildings on SU's campuses, no single faculty will be the building's custodian. The centre will also be used for conferences, which will give access to people outside the University as well. The centre will also have ample parking space in the basement and outside of the facility.

Interior lighting

On the ground floor, the building has two large auditoriums, two lecture halls, and a computer centre. Regent Lighting Solutions (RLS) were approached for a lighting solution, which included:

* Linear lighting and Kibo 145: In conjunction with the Kibo 145 downlight, the Linear Pro 70 was employed to provide the best possible lighting output for the different lecture halls on all floors. These two products work well together to reach the required lux levels, not just visually but also functionally. The Linear Pro has a continuous design for the angled ceiling detail to give the auditorium beautiful light lines. These luminaires are the highlight of the interior of the building as it’s the main lighting application throughout.

* Shuttle Double: This was specified in the hallways for all floors.
* Linear Micro 33: This was utilised for the ablution areas on all floors. The Linear Micro is suspended in the middle of the area; the goal was to create a more intimate atmosphere than a public restroom.

* Nemo: This downlight was used to light up all entrances into the auditoriums from the 1st to the 3rd floor.

* Canolux: Used in the stairwells between the floors, achieving an aesthetic look as well as the required lux levels for staircases.

Exterior lighting

With regards to lighting the exterior of the building, RLS supplied:

* Shuttle Double: Creates a nuance for the external perimeter lighting of the building, and was used in conjunction with the Shuttle ceiling which is mounted on the concrete soffits.

* Shuttle Ceiling: External perimeter lighting mounted on the concrete soffits to light up the walkways around the building leading to the entrances and stairways.
* Geo Bulkhead: General lighting of the internal/external stairwells and substation areas.
* Lumina 1500mm: This luminaire was chosen to light up the side of the building as well as the building's name.
* Lugo: Basement parking and plant room around the Jan Mouton building.

Lighting controls

Venues such as auditoriums and lecture halls pose a major challenge to not only the lighting installation but to the level of control required. High-quality light is required to maximise the comfort and productivity of the scholars whilst control of the lighting is crucial for the lecturer to truly capitalize on the session. Auditoriums have many uses and one needs to be able to effortlessly adapt the lighting to the use of the environment. Bright focused lighting on the front stage to help visual communication by enhancing facial expressions or reducing light intensity on the front stage to prevent whitewashing on the screen during a presentation or video.

The client’s requirement for the ground floor auditorium was to control the room as one entity but also in the same instance as single entities, meaning that it had to be controlled as a left-hand side and a right-hand side of the room. RLS designed the control system using its daliTECH Omega product range. A combination of configurable scene pads for physical interaction and using motion sensors ensured a perfect balance of user control to best suit the task at hand as well as providing energy savings.

This system was commissioned according to the client’s requirements for specific scenes, similarly, this was done throughout all the floor levels. Here is an example of one of the scene pad settings which are mounted at the lecturer’s desk. Scenes 1-4 (100%, 75%, 50%, 25%), scene 5 and 6 as dimming up and down respectively and scene 7 as presentation mode. Presentation mode, for example, turns all downlighters above the lecturer’s desk off to allow for video presentations on the screen and the rest of the luminaires drop down to 25% which provides an adequate light level for note-taking.

The first and second-floor auditoriums had the same split room concept as the ground floor, with one key difference; both halves of the rooms also needed to be able to be controlled together, as a single large room. Control protocols each have their own set of rules which need to be adhered to for the systems to work. daliTECH Omega is flexible enough to accommodate small and large environments by combining different products. By doing so RLS were able to achieve the same level of operation in the larger auditoriums as described in the context above.

PROJECT TEAM

Developer: Stellenbosch University

Architect: TV3 Architects

Electrical Engineers: CA Du Toit

Electrical Contractor: Harris Electrical

Main Contractor: Group 5

Electrical Contractor: Harris Electrical

Products supplied: daliTECH Omega

Photography: TV3 Architects