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

Lighting Contrast and Conceptual Design

Comment by Vijay Gupta: I wanted to [continue] discussing [the] earliest availability of standards or [guidelines] which are already on hand. So your panel has done a good job. There are a lot of issues on contrast.

I want to give you a real example. I work in a building that three of us here – Kate and Tom – : [The GSA Headquarters] Building. It’s a historical building, 1917. It’s a very bad building. I’m in the office of the chief architect. So [I had an old ] space. It was old design.

In February of 2002, we moved into the new office of the chief architect. It’s [on a corridor of a wing] and was 50-foot-wide [with the core running] east and west. And the whole [interior is] all white, clear white, everything white – the ceiling, the floor, the floor tiles, the wall, the columns, the furniture. Even the signs are so little – all white, all white.

Comment by Greg Knoop: We can show you that. It’s in that synopsis presentation [slide 8].

And the chairs – somebody brought in the chairs with the leather. The chairs were leather. And the only thing which was shining was the [frame, which was] chrome. The good news was they had plants at every column. So [I did not] bump into the columns.

The conference room [had glare as furnishings were all] white – chairs white. And especially if the sun is shining, you got a lot of sun.

Okay, to conclude. My eyesight was a little bit better than now. So I could navigate with the green plants and with some other [visual cues]. I [relied on] them that way for several years. But I had to go into this [new space]. But they got rid of the plants.

Comment by [Participant]: [The design of this space] was influenced by Richard Meier. I think Ed Feiner had gone to Meier’s office and, you know, he liked that and so they hired some designers to do this all-white scene where everything’s white.

Comment by [Participant]: But it was good because it got Vijay so angry that he convened us.

Comment by [Participant]: We certainly [don’t] want that to be the representative of what makes American architecture great. That really is a horrible statement.