John Bullock Lighting Design
Phone:
+44(0)1935 812447
Mobile:
+44(0)7970 025924
Email:
jb@jb-ld.co.uk
24-10-2008
The DDA makes it a requirement for employers and anyone offering services to the public to ensure that they do not discriminate against any person with a disability. And that includes those with any kind of visual impairment.
As a lighting designer, this is a very difficult area to design for, as 'visual impairment' covers a wide spectrum of dis-ability. There can be no published guidelines for engineering a lighting solution when everyone concerned may display completely - often opposing - symptoms.
There are eye problems that can be helped by providing higher levels of illumination - but there are other problems where the opposite applies, and reduced levels of light are necessary. High contrast in a space can be a problem, but there are situations where too little differentiation can result in an indiscriminate visual 'fog'. It becomes a serious design problem when symptoms in opposition to each other have to be dealt with equally.
So it's important that the project designer/architect/client liaise with the lighting designer at the earliest opportunity to establish performance criteria for the lighting installation. Who is being designed for - what eventualities need to be designed in? These are not questions that can be left until the building is finished.
.JPG)
A (very) basic guide to ethical specification
Lighting design: it's a client thing
Calculating obtrusive light: whose job is it?
When there's nothing in the catalogue
When is a chandelier not a pendant? When its a lantern!
When clients learn too much . . .
One of our details is missing
Where will light fittings come from?
The end of the light bulb?
Always something new . . . again
Always something new . . .
Combining old and new
On being in the dark . . .
Riffing The Internet of Things
