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

Historic Basis for Lighting Criteria

I think, first off, a little-known fact about the lighting levels that all of us use daily to do our work and that we also find in lighting codes is that they were based on a study done many, many years ago, over 20, 30 years ago. And the study used young, normally sighted people to develop the [illumination] levels that are found in the Illuminating Engineering Society’s lighting levels.

So from the very beginning, the lighting levels really need to be questioned because they were not studied from a perspective of, you know, a large portion of the population, from older people to younger people. But we’re currently stuck with that, and it’s nothing that this group can change. But I think it’s important to note that the constant lowering of the lighting levels is based on false information.

Conflicts with Energy Codes and Standards

Another really difficult issue are [the] competing energy codes. And there’s just a ton of those. Most energy codes in the country are based on ASHRAE/IES 90.1. And then individual states – and I’ll take Oregon, since it’s where I live -- by mandate of the legislature, [the] Oregon energy code must be a minimum of 10 percent below ASHRAE/IES numbers.

As we said earlier this morning, when you factor in LEED™ and also some requirements from other areas – some large hospitals have their own requirements, et cetera, – you can get down to 30 percent below energy code.

When you’re looking at like one watt a square foot for an office, for example, that’s a really tough thing [to design to]. I mean, I do on a regular basis ambient lighting levels in office spaces that are 20-foot candles and have to be supplemented with task lights because 20- foot candles is simply not enough light.

But that’s the reality of where codes are taking us. And LEED™ in particular has been egregious in this area, striving for a good purpose, but basically making it very difficult for us to provide the kind of lighting that’s required for people to do their jobs, basically.

So these competing energy codes are a big issue for this group because it goes right down to individual cities, where codes are even more strict than the state code or ASHRAE, and you have to comply with all these things. It makes it real difficult to do your job.

If you’re looking at low-vision people, elderly people, and you want higher lighting levels, the codes are not allowing you to do that. And it’s an issue that we can’t ignore if we’re going to move forward and try to have some impact on all of this. So that’s a big issue for me.

Code Enforcement

The second part of codes is enforcement. There are a lot of places where there is an energy code, but the energy code is ignored. So New York, for example, has an energy code. If you’ve been to New York City, you can tell that the energy code doesn’t really function there very well.

Comment by [Participant]. That’s changed, though. Cracking down seriously.

Response by Robert Dupuy. Oh, it has? Well, that’s good to hear.

But you take California, Oregon and Washington, where those three states have had energy codes for a very long period of time. The enforcement is all on the front end. It’s a bunch of forms that you fill out. And it’s all based on the fact that you’re an honest person and that you’re not fudging those forms to make it work. There is little or no enforcement on the back end. So what you install or what actually gets put on the job may have no relation to what was on the drawings.

And to me, if we just had enforcement, we could stop lowering lighting levels. And if you take the South as another example, there’s hardly any enforcement of lighting codes in the South. So -- and again, this is outside of this group’s work, but it’s important to understand that these are the kinds of things that are impacting our work and requiring these low lighting levels.

Examples of Integrating Daylighting with Electric Lighting (slide 2)

The first photo on the top is about lighting controls, which are being now mandated by energy codes. So the state of Oregon, for example, requires controls for daylighting.

The second photo shows a medical office building, where we have daylight coming into the space. The first few fixtures are off because they’re on automatic dimming controls. And then the electric lighting is contributing to the people that are not within 15 feet of the window wall, which is the pretty much accepted standard for how far daylight will penetrate into a space, which is another big issue. How do you get daylight further into office spaces and so forth?

And you take Germany as an example: all the new buildings in Germany are skinny because the law in Germany requires that workers have access to daylight. They must be able to see daylight. The only way to really do that is to skinny up the building so it’s not very deep, to allow that light to penetrate all the work areas. That’s my presentation.