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

Issue 23: Should design guidance for persons with low vision be prescriptive or performance based?

Comment by Marsha Mazz: I don’t know where we’re going with this because as we’ve said, time and time again, the issues of concern to this group here are not addressed by the standards. So educating people on the standards won’t be helpful.

Response by Earle Kennett: It’s probably the most helpful thing we’ll do.

Comment by Marsha Mazz: The only things that the standards require are certain accessible signs, okay, I’m trying to think, accessible ATMs. What else do we have? Well, first of all there’s no lighting standard at all, I mean, there’s none at all in the barriers act standards or in the IBC accessibility in chapter 11.

Response by Earle Kennett: You missed the whole point, Marsha. And here’s the point. You’ve got design teams, and it’s a matter of educating the project design teams in areas that they can bring their design expertise in. And it’s not a standard. In fact, the vast majority of design guys, the criteria are not cut and dry, black and white, yes and no. I think that’s where a big problem is: that the design teams don’t really look at accessibility across the board in the same sort of way as we’re looking at energy and green and areas like that. So there is a need I think to –

Comment by Marsha Mazz: If they’re interested in accessibility, they’d be looking at the standards.

Response by Earle Kennett: They’d be looking well-beyond the standards, well-beyond the standards. That’s the point that you’re missing.

Response by Kurt Knight: It’s not just missing the standards. It’s all of our standards, which in some cases are inadequate. There is no standard there [that A/E’s] had to deal with; we have to be careful. The word standards tends to be [misunderstood].

Comment by Marsha Mazz: You’re right. It is a significant problem, how do you get you’re A/Es and how do you follow up and do the review to make sure what they’re doing meets all of our requirements. And that is a major issue.

Comment by Jim Woods: I want to pose something here. I’ll probably get shot but I think we’re trying to put the square peg in a round hole. Part of what we’re talking about may be accessibility. But I don’t think the major issue of what we’re talking about, [which is] design to improve or recommendations to improve design for low vision persons, is necessarily something that we’re going to standardize.

Response by Earle Kennett: I agree, absolutely.

But we can have performance requirements, okay, and performance requirements can be put into standards.

Responses by [two Participants]: Or guidance. Yeah, like the VA documents, et cetera.

Response by Kurt Knight: Let’s call those guides. We’ve got to be careful in language here because standards mean something. We ought to talk in terms of guidance at this particular point.

Let’s talk about guidance. But the issue for me, fundamentally, is a lot of this discussion has gone along with ideas that “if you do this, it’s going to be permanent.” That thing is going to be there – if I put the sign on, it’s going to stay. Now, if I’m dealing with a lighting issue or a thermal or an acoustic issue, first of all, [it’s performance] doesn’t even start until the building’s occupied, because it depends on use patterns. So the use patterns have got to be put into the consideration.

The time of use is another situation. Is it going to be instantaneous? Is it steady-state? What are the dynamic implications? We’re dealing with a whole different realm of issues. I was trying to [describe] that this afternoon. So as we move forward, it seems to me that we’ve got to look at some kind of a dynamic approach that addresses the longevity of the occupant in the building and what’s going to happen with aging, what’s going to happen with the durability of the maintenance systems of the building itself. It’s going to change and we’ve got to accommodate people over time in a dynamic environment; we have not addressed that.

Comment by Fred Krimgold: I think that in picking up on that point that we’re not only looking at static physical solutions. But there’s an interaction of operational and management practices which make the system work and that’s where the flexibility enters in and where the judgment has to continue to be operative and that’s more complicated than prescriptive physical standards and it has to be taught and administered in a more subtle way. I understand the difficulty of the standard having to be something objective, incontrovertible and, objectively measured, and so on. But we’re really trying to improve the circumstances of people’s lives and that is a more comprehensive and complex activity than simply dimensioning or –

Response by Earle Kennett: And there can be many solutions to that.

Comments by Robert Lynch: Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t want to interrupt the flow of this conversation, but there’s a few points I’d like to make before we disperse today.

First of all, I’m reminded – and I don’t want to diminish the importance of a great old hymn called “Amazing Grace”, but I was lost and I was found eventually by people like Stephanie and a good friend of mine in the AIA, Syl Damianos. I wouldn’t be here today if they weren’t diligent in looking me up because I had moved to the sticks of Northern Virginia. But my three points I’d like to make, I am so grateful to be here. Vijay, who I didn’t know before today and all the others and you my colleagues who I’ve had a chance to maybe talk a little bit with, I am grateful for that and I look forward to a longstanding relationship as we work on this effort together.

But there are three points I’d like to make before we leave and if you forgive me, I’m going to read them so that I get it right.

1. Someone this morning mentioned that the ANSI A117 committee, should work on these standards and I agree. But we’re not qualified at the moment to do so. As an example to the contrary, the ANSI committee achieved good elevator standards and criteria over the years because we had strong participation by the elevator industry on the committee. They were always forthcoming.

   They were technically grounded and very persuasive in helping us to achieve good elevator standards. We need that sort of thing, that sort of participation on the ANSI committee. The International Association of Lighting Designers and the Illumination Engineering ought to be represented as professionals on that committee. We do have representation. As being a consensus committee, we do have representation from the disability community. But we need some good, strong technical people on that committee to get the job done. So I might say we might even have a volunteer here on this committee here today who might be willing to serve that way.

2. There’s another thing, a different tact that I think we may ultimately have to take. There’s a limit on what energy conservation can achieve. I mean, we are struggling. I mean, we hear things – like someone on high who probably doesn’t know enough about what they’re talking about says we’re going to have to achieve a 30 percent reduction in energy conservation standards over the next few years.

   It’s good to strive for ever greater efficiency and achieving better design and to attempt to meet an ever greater number of design goals while consuming an ever decreasing amount of energy. There will be a limit to this approach, however, and we may no longer be able to deliver ever better functioning buildings with ever diminishing amounts of energy. We may need to consider an alternate approach. That is we, our country, will probably eventually have to find a way to obtain more energy after all conservation efforts have been exhausted to meet more extensive, more sophisticated design goals.

3. My last point is very short and it has to do with energy conservation as an ultimate problem. The Department of Energy was instituted to solve energy conservation problems but I have a feeling that in the end-result or as we sit today, it might be the problem. So that’s all I have to say and I thank you for having me be with you today and yesterday.

Response by Marsha Mazz: Bob, as former chair of the ANSI A117 membership committee, and as a current member also of A117, I will say that anyone who applies for membership and has not ever attended a meeting is likely not to be accepted on the committee. So I would very strongly urge whoever is considering joining the committee to begin attending meetings.

We’re starting up a new cycle and to put in public proposals and come and defend those proposals and then ask to be on the committee because anybody can submit a proposal to A117 just like anybody can submit a proposal to the building codes. So although I strongly encourage professionals to step forward, I know that committee pretty darn well and the membership committee on which you also serve, always ask yourself whether this particular interest has ever participated or whether we can count on them to continue to participate once they’ve got their one issue solved.