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

Issue 1: What are the effects of energy-efficient lamps and fixtures on persons with low vision

Comment and Question by [Participant]: The research that you’ve been talking about a little bit as an idea of integrated design, you mentioned LED lighting. I mean, there’s tremendous drive to reduce energy usage in building that impacts lighting because that impacts air conditioning and blah, blah, blah.

And you go to energy conferences, and a lot of times they’ll tell you, we’ve got too much light. You know, some of the buildings are so bright that you don’t need all that. Certainly, that’s probably for normal-vision people, I don’t know. But have any of these studies been trying to integrate LEDs, these T8s, and all that, which are becoming the standard, compact fluorescents, all that are being installed everywhere?

Response by Dave Munson: Those are sciences that evolve so quickly today, that by the time you write a rule for it, it doesn’t exist.

Question by [Participant]: But what impact do they have on low vision and – ?

Response by Dave Munson: Well, there’s no answer but an opposite reaction. We invented all these CFL lamps. I’ll tell you, you want to see a disaster, drop one at the Home Depot on the floor, now you’ve got a hazardous cleanup.

Comment by [Participant]: That’s not going to stop. I mean, the energy is going to be –

Response by Dave Munson: The cost of the energy to light a building, compared to all the costs of all the people in the building is pretty small.

Comment by [Participant]: It impacts air conditioning, too. All I’m saying is, that’s reality.

Comment by Dennis Siemsen: Yeah. I think what Richard’s saying is that we shouldn’t be looking at the individual light sources. We shouldn’t just, you know, worry so much about whether it’s a T8 or a T12 or an LED or a CFL.

What we should be saying is, if, for a given light source and a given surface that will be illuminated, how do the two interact? Because then, you can always work backwards and say, okay, we’ve got a new light technology, whatever the next one is going to be, and it’s a small point source, and it’s got so much spread and gives you so many candelas at this particular point. Once you know that stuff, then whatever new technology comes out you can go through.

What we don’t have, and I think what the DEVA people are trying to do, is, how does that specifically impact the individual, whether they’re normally sighted or not normally sighted? And those are things that we really ought to know. There’s not good research out there.

And [while] we’ve got low-vision researchers on the project, there isn’t a clinician in there. So –

Response by [Participant]: And there’s no electrical lighting person on there that deals with some of these other issues associated with [lighting design].

Comment by Dennis Siemsen: Yeah, so I think what it’s really going to need is a team approach. And hopefully, through the wonder of the Internet and integrated databases, if I were writing a research proposal and I go to NEI – we were talking about this at the break –and I get this right in my search and see who is doing what, who is interested in this – not what’s published because there [are] partners.

But it’s very interesting to go to the NEI or other – and I don’t know what your database is in your area. I would search on NetLine, I might go to the NEI, I might go to NIH. But I’m just stuck. Except that I’ve got a designer [in the] family, I wouldn’t know what database to search to see which one of you is interested in these topics, where I might be able to call you and say, hey, let’s collaborate.