Keith Bright

Surveying the surveyors

This research examines the perceived concern in the public arena about the quality of residential surveys and suggests a high rate of sub standard reporting within residential surveys. The Homebuyer form of report was used in a test of survey standards. A sample of ten surveyors examined the same house in controlled circumstances. Only one surveyor identified each of the three key defects within the property. The research considers the method of assessment of quality within surveys and reports upon the identification of defects and the levels of recognition. The research concludes that there is an unexpectedly high level of reporting that falls below an acceptable standard. Recommendations are made for the improvement of standards, an assessment of the skills required and the requirements for the education process for surveyors.

Emergency lighting and wayfinding provision systems for visually impaired people: Phase II of a study

This paper complements the data presented in phase I of this study. This paper looks at three new escape lighting systems, and compares them with three systems tested previously. In addition to testing their suitability for 30 people with different visual impairments, results are presented for 12 normally sighted people. Using the facilities at the Building Research Establishment, it has been possible to examine the performance of ceiling-mounted emergency luminaires providing two levels of illuminance, LED strips in two configurations, LED strips with overhead luminaires and miniature incandescent wayfinding strips. Speeds of movement are presented here, along with subjective responses. Comparisons are made with findings from normally sighted people. There are no significant differences in the walking speeds under the lighting systems, but the visually impaired subjects had significantly different opinions on the ease with which they could see where to go.

The perception of lighting quality in a non‐uniformly lit office environment

This paper presents the views of 16 fully sighted people who carried out typical office tasks under eight different lighting systems. This work is taken from a much larger study, primarily involved with the lighting of office tasks for visually impaired people. Non‐parametric statistical tests show there are significant differences of opinion about the different lighting systems in terms of adequacy and comfort. Whilst there is a general trend in the results which suggest that increasing task illuminance and wall illuminance is preferred by the test subjects, other issues are identified which can influence aspects of lighting quality.

Building Design: The Importance of Flooring Pattern and Finish for People with a Visual Impairment

The design of public access buildings offers opportunities to select features, patterns and finishes for building elements which are optimal for the residual vision of visually impaired people. As part of a larger questionnaire survey, a sample of 676 visually impaired people reported on where they looked while moving about in buildings and which floor designs and finishes they found helpful or detrimental. The results suggest that visual aspects of floor design are especially important to visually impaired people when obtaining information for navigation and that plain uniform patterning with matt finishes are preferred. Some implications for designers are discussed.

Computer assisted teaching system for the diagnosis of building defects

This paper describes the development of a computer assisted training system for teaching and testing surveyors. Hie development started with the introduction to the construction industry of early expert systems. Whilst expert systems were intended to act purely as decision systems, they were seen to offer potential as vehicles for capturing expertise and experience as well as knowledge and be used for training purposes. To enable the knowledge bases within the system to be structured it was necessary to examine how domain experts solve problems. Knowledge bases representing this process were incorporated into various shell systems and evaluated. Traditional methods of information transfer, both at the initial learning stage and for continuing professional development, were considered. It was found that shell systems had certain attributes which, whilst not part of their original design concept, could be used to capture and manipulate knowledge and train the user to solve problems. By using data given to t...