Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture

New Faculty of Education, UWE

Architect Alec French Partnership

Engineer Arup

Client Bristol City Council

The Faculty of Education was relocated to join

the main UWE campus at Frenchay, outside

Bristol, requiring the master planning and

landscaping of an area to the south-west of the

University campus. After discussion, it was

agreed that the building should be modelled

on a contemporary working environment, but

at the same time the brief aspired to create a

model teaching environment, incorporating all

the facilities to be found in primary and

secondary schools. There appeared to be no

contradiction in these two scenarios.

The lighting strategy agreed was as follows:

To provide appropriate levels of lighting for

a range of teaching, administration and

social spaces

To make the most effective use of natural

light to reduce running costs and CO 2

emissions, and to enjoy the varying

qualities of the natural source

To relate the building to its external

environment and landscaping.

As can be gained from the diagrams, the

large amount of space required by a

University faculty is broken down into four

wings connected by a double height social and

communication space.

By breaking up the accommodation into a

series of parallel wings the architect met the

brief to provide naturally lit teaching spaces,

whilst the interconnecting ‘street’ was unified

by the overhead daylighting. The whole

provides a very human environment.

The extensive use of controlled natural light

in the teaching wings reduces the heat load

and energy consumption of artificial lighting.

Temperatures are allowed to fluctuate more

widely in the street which acts as a passive

solar modifier to the rest of the building.

The accompanying photographs show

clearly the success of the double height street,

together with the external spaces or

courtyards between the wings as experienced

from outside and within the building, meeting

the brief for a unity between the internal/

external environment and the landscaping.

126 Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture

The plans showing the linkage of the street to the individual wings formed by the teaching areas.
A. Ground floor; B. First floor

Alec French Partnership

Alec French Partnership