QWS – QLAB WINDOW SYSTEM

DAYLIGHT WINDOW SYSTEM

Daylight in your office

Providing ample daylight to rooms is not a difficult challenge - large glazings, sometimes filling an entire wall, do the job. What makes this aspect of design challenging for the designer is the need to protect users from excessive sunlight. A common solution is to install full-surface shades in the windows - blinds or shutters - but these, while protecting people from the sun, completely deprive them of daylight. What this boils down to is that people, forced to be completely cut off from daylight, spend most of their time in artificial light, which is often completely unsuitable for their work.

The QWS - Qlab Window System solves the problem of access to daylight and protection from the sun and provides a perfect integration of natural and artificial light in office and educational spaces. The system provides uninterrupted access to daylight thanks to the so-called light shelf, a lightweight system installed in the window area that redirects sunlight towards the ceiling, where it is diffused and sent into the room as a uniform glow.

Light shelves installed in rooms with a southern, eastern and western orientation provide an enormous amount of light, providing illuminance levels on work surfaces in the range of 300-2000 lux for most of the year. Installing the light shelf alone (without the other QLS components) saves 50-65% of the electricity used for lighting.

Many years of research into reflective optics have led to the development of a light shelf that provides the best possible distribution of sunlight into the room. The shelf's simple geometry and the specialised reflective material on its upper surface translate into high efficiency and optimum reflection angles. The load-bearing element of the light shelf is a slim aluminium beam which is installed to the side walls of the window opening or - using special hangers - to the lintel or ceiling of the room. The wing of the light shelf and the textile roller blind are attached to the support beam. The top edge of the beam also allows the installation of linear luminaires that shine towards the room ceiling.