Proceedings of: Workshop on Improving Building Design for Persons with Low Vision

Disorienting Spaces (slide 7)

These are two images from the [research] project that Dennis talked about yesterday, where they were analyzing interior spaces that visually say one thing but really mean another.

In the [photo] on the left, which is from the Bellagio [Hotel in Las Vegas, this is a reflective glass wall next to the two gentlemen. It looks like there’s four people standing there. There’s actually only two. And the flooring pattern is such that there’s a little offset, but it continues on in through the glass. I would walk into that wall.

You know, it’s hard to tell. If you imagine Las Vegas lighting, it’s a lot of really warm lights and it’s a very uniform – (background noise) – of color temperature of light. There’s not a lot of distinguishing [features]. It is all just sort of orangy, runs together, very disastrous design change.

[In the photo] on the right, it looks like steps. It’s not. It’s actually a flat surface, and then going into the lovely, also very easy-to-navigate checkerboard flooring pattern. So we’re creating in an idea something that was supposed to identify what is probably an elevator lobby, but it’s creating navigation difficulties.