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There are existing emergency standards to abide by when it comes to designing spaces where emergency lighting needs to be incorporated. Daisalux, a well-established company that produces emergency lighting systems, has created a manual aimed at analysing the needs for safety lighting in order to find highly effective and efficient solutions.
To achieve this, the first step is a careful reflection on the design itself, giving value to the overall solution. There is a distinction between three types of safety facilities that need to be integrated into buildings:
Each of these systems must be considered separately since their objectives are different.
The main purpose of emergency lighting, safety signalling, and beacon lighting equipment is to ensure the safety of the people occupying the premises in the event of an emergency.
The effectiveness of an escape route depends primarily on the people carrying out the evacuation. The main causes of panic during emergencies include:
To eliminate these risks, it is essential that emergency lighting and signalling systems help control panic and facilitate the safe evacuation of occupants from a building.
The objective of escape route lighting is to assist occupants in safely exiting a location by providing appropriate visual conditions and guidance when locating escape routes. Additionally, emergency lighting ensures that fire-fighting and safety equipment can be easily located and used.
For escape routes:
For open areas:
These lighting levels are intended to reduce panic and enable safe movement toward escape routes by providing adequate visual conditions and directional guidance.
The minimum duration for emergency escape lighting and open-area lighting is 3 hours.
All emergency luminaires should comply with the EN 60598-2-22 / IEC 60598-2-22 standards. Compliance must be certified through testing, after which an EU Declaration of Conformity is issued.
Emergency signalling should be positioned to clearly indicate escape routes. The visual ergonomics of safety signalling must facilitate visual accommodation even under the most adverse conditions. The goal is not only to comply with regulations, but also to ensure that the signalling is highly effective.
Daisalux designed the Ikus series based on these efficiency considerations. The system uses:
This technology distributes light evenly around the emergency sign, achieving excellent contrast and uniformity values while providing high visibility even in demanding environments.
Under emergency lighting conditions:
These conditions must remain within the specified colour boundaries for the entire minimum illumination duration of 3 hours.
The European and international standard EN ISO 7010 uses no text in emergency signage. Instead, only graphical indications of escape routes leading from any possible origin point to the final exit are used.
The ISO 30061 standard also recommends the use of beacon lighting as a support system for emergency lighting, particularly during fires where smoke may significantly reduce visibility and emergency lighting effectiveness.
Architects, designers, engineers, and even clients often see emergency lighting as visually intrusive due to the bulkiness of many systems. However, Daisalux has developed solutions designed to integrate discreetly within architectural spaces.
Available applications include:
These solutions allow emergency systems to meet safety requirements without compromising the aesthetics of the architectural design.