Comfort on Demand

Retractable screens cut heat and glare, offer insect control, natural ventilation, and energy savings...and then disappear to restore unobstructed views.
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Sponsored by Phantom Screens

Saving Space by Maximizing the Natural Environment

Blending indoor and outdoor spaces to create multi-purpose areas is emerging as a trend in commercial design projects. The prospect has applicability to a wide range of commercial situations, from hospital visiting and health care patient areas to restaurant patios, indoor pools, and the like. For virtually any owner that can envision extending working, recreational, dining or entertaining spaces, design professionals can make outdoor spaces more livable through the use of retractable screens to creating outdoor ‘rooms' that afford airflow without insects.

These outdoor rooms can be fine-tuned for sun and privacy control with different kinds of mesh. Moreover, the improved use of existing spaces reduces the need for additional square footage and associated expenditure of resources, both natural and financial.

Retractable screens may also be a good solution to meeting the requirements of Section 6-202.15 of the U.S. FDA Food Code., which stipulates that outer openings of a food establishment must be protected against entry by insects and rodents. Retractable screens resolve the issue of what to do with the fixed screens when they're not needed during the off season.

Reducing Glare


Retractable screens helped minimize glare and make a safer swimming environment at Gordon Head Recreation Center.

Photo courtesy of Phantom Screens

Glare in interior environments, particularly office situations, is a growing problem and a leading cause of eyestrain and other vision difficulties. It stems from over illumination from lamps, overhead lights, and particularly sunlight that reflects onto computer screens, "washing out" the screen image and forcing the eye muscles to strain constantly in an effort to refocus and regain clarity. Upper neck and head muscles are taxed as well as tilting the head and neck to seek better views from different angles is prevalent among computer operators.

Windows are a major source of glare in many buildings, though a proper daylighting strategy can offer significant glare reduction. In swimming pool environments, glare is a perpetual problem, and one of the chief obstacles to a safe swimming environment. If left uncontrolled, glare can pose serious safety issues as it interferes with lifeguards' ability to see beneath the surface of the water, impairs their concentration and causes fatigue. The Gordon Head Recreation Center's McKain found that retractable screens helped solve the glare problem for his lifeguards.

"Something that we weren't expecting was in the evening when the sun is setting the lifeguards were having great difficulty seeing across the deck because of the glare off the water," he says. "The screens have made a huge difference and have greatly increased the safety of the patrons."

The Benefit of Views and Natural Ventilation

The fact that retractable screens afford views to the outside even when drawn, and restore unobstructed views when not needed is no small advantage. More than just a pleasantry, views of nature have been shown to affect human health and well being. That humans deeply respond to and benefit from contact with nature is espoused by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson in his 1984 book, Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species. Biophilia is defined as "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life." For the built environment, biophilia translates to design features like natural ventilation and opportunities to interact with nature both physically and visually.

In health care facilities, such as hospital visiting areas and patient areas, views of nature were determined to be health affirming and confer significant benefits on ill patients. According to Roger Ulrich, professor and director of the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M's College of Architecture, the idea that nature offers benefits to ill people is centuries old and widely held in all cultures. Among the advantages that views of nature and gardens can have are lower stress and anxiety in patients, visitors and staff as well as reduced depression and better quality of life for chronically ill patients, and even reduced pain in patients.

Ulrich notes garden-like scenes can reduce pain as indicated both by patients' perceived pain and requests for pain-relieving medications. According to Ulrich, studies have shown that patients in hospital rooms with morning sunshine need pain medication about 23 percent less than patients in rooms with dull, shadowy afternoon light. In his research on 46 hospital charts of gallbladder-surgery patients, where half the patients received rooms with a window looking to a small grove of trees, and the other half a brick wall, Ulrich found a significant difference in outcome. Those with the views of trees went home sooner, were less upset, had fewer complications, and required less pain medication.

 

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Originally published in GreenSource.
Originally published in November 2009

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