“Invisible” light for the "Schule am See" (School by the Lake)

Educational concept, architecture, lighting: the Schule am See in the market town of Hard in the Austrian federal state of Vorarlberg is exceptional in several respects. There’s the cluster school’s educational approach, which enables cross-year learning in changing teams. There’s the building developed by the Dornbirn-based architecture firm Baumschlager Hutter Partners, which opens up in a comb shape towards meadows and water. And last but not least, there’s Zumtobel’s innovative lighting concept, which – almost invisibly – uses Limbic® Lighting to support the acquisition of knowledge throughout the day.

Human-centric: this applies not only to the forward-looking educational concept of the Schule am See, which opened its classrooms in this special form in 2018. This also applies to Zumtobel’s innovative lighting, which relies entirely on Limbic® Lighting. This means that the lighting adapts to the activities of students and teachers throughout the day. Adapted to the natural incidence of light, colour temperatures between 2700 and 5700 Kelvin are achieved.


Reddish light calms, bluish light stimulates

The light colour and intensity of the LED luminaires take into account the natural biorhythm of pupils and teachers – and support different activities with a suitable lighting atmosphere in the room. Reddish light is used for mindfulness breaks, for calming or even when reading aloud, for example. Bluish light on the other hand has a stimulating effect – and promotes an atmosphere of openness, attentiveness and activity in the room.

The lighting solution developed especially for this project by Bartenbach GmbH and the architects, and implemented jointly with Zumtobel, contributes significantly to the freedoms of these open, modular rooms being used. All the more mysterious is the fact that at first glance no luminaires can be seen.


Invisible light from the smartboard to seating circle

This is because the extremely slimline, white Pico LED linear luminaires with tunableWhite technology appear merely as precisely integrated, dividing strips in the acoustic or exposed concrete ceiling. Thanks to micro-faceted downlight technology and recessed LED light points with high gloss reflectors, they nevertheless enable optimum luminous efficacy. The result is glare-free, almost invisible light from the smartboard to seating circle, from class group to individual work.


A school with a unique atmosphere

“Teachers and students often aren’t aware of what creates the unique atmosphere in our school”, says headmaster of the secondary school, Christian Grabher. “But it’s down to the successful interplay of architecture, lighting and interior design. And the learning spaces, which, thanks to the glass façade, the glass partitions and the invisible but powerful luminaires, are light and airy”.

The linear, highly efficient TECTON LED continuous-row luminaire has proven to be a flexible system for the large sports hall with additional areas. The ceiling construction with an underlying slat structure ensures that even missed passes or balls are safely intercepted.


Economic and optical excellence

And the Schule am See also plays it safe when it comes to emergency lighting: Zumtobel installed safety luminaires and escape-sign luminaires in conjunction with the ONLITE central eBox as a central emergency lighting system. What’s particularly special in Hard is that the general lighting also serves as a safety luminaire. It was therefore not necessary to install large numbers of safety luminaires throughout the school building. In addition to the economic advantages, the optical ones are also impressive: both in the main hallway and in the individual school clusters as well as in the entire sports hall, the ceiling appears much calmer.

Innovative forms of learning, flexible use of space, open architecture and customised lighting – the example of the Schule am See shows that Zumtobel is equipped for the learning of the future.


Client: Marktgemeinde Hard

Architect: Baumschlager Hutter Partners

Lighting Designer: Bartenbach GmbH

Electrical Consultant: Ingenieurbüro Brugger GmbH

Electrical Contractor: Elmar Graf GmbH

Project year: 2018