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

Purpose of the Workshop

Well, we’re gathered here today in search of an architecture that reflects our society, and our society is inclusive. We’re the United States of America. We’re an inclusive society and we look to strive for an inclusive design (slides 1 and 2). You’ve certainly done that over the last several decades in improvements for persons with disabilities and persons who have difficulty getting around, but yet there’s more work to do.

We’re looking to help those people between the actual darkness and between the light. We’re looking to help the people who are in that transition perhaps or are suffering in their older age or just were born with less eyesight. And in fact, what we do here today could reflect on other issues such as hearing and other types of losses.

Create high-definition environments for people with visual impairment

So we look to put together some concepts for creating a more high-definition environment for people who are visually impaired so that they can experience buildings in a safer, sounder way, so that they can be included in our public buildings and in all buildings in fact. We negotiate and appreciate the world around us through our various senses. The natural and built environments we see with our sight, but we also hear, smell and sense them, feel them. So we look for all sorts of clues visual and non-visual, but it is the visual that we are most dependent on.