Spotlight on Diversity April 2022
For National Deaf History Month, IESNYC explores the DeafSpace Lighting Guidelines and salutes the world’s most famous inventor, Thomas Edison
DeafSpace Lighting Guidelines
Seeing is the primary way that deaf people learn about the world, and many use sign language, a visual-kinetic mode of communication, as they navigate spaces. Deaf conversation requires clear sightlines, and gatherings often begin by adjusting lighting, window shades, and seating so that everyone can participate. Seeability is paramount.
These kinds of adjustments and practices that enhance visual connection in living and work spaces have long been practiced within Deaf culture. But the DeafSpace Project, established at Gallaudet University in 2005, recognized them as architectural elements and encoded them in the DeafSpace Design Guidelines. The guidelines define five major touchpoints between Deaf experiences and the built environment: sensory reach; space and proximity; mobility and proximity; light and color; and acoustics.
Poor lighting conditions can interrupt visual communication and contribute to eyestrain and even physical exhaustion. Soft, diffused lighting—including well controlled daylighting—should facilitate communication and make obstacles and transient dangers readily apparent. Dim lighting, backlighting, glare, distracting shadow patterns, and abrupt transitions between light and shade should be avoided. Direct dimming helps ensure that light levels for specific spaces and activities are appropriate. And at night, pools of light create “eddies” for gathering and conversation, located just off primary pathways. Color can provide a clear contrast behind signers—muted greens and blues contrast well against skin tones—and facilitate wayfinding.
DeafSpace practices can be seen in several spaces around Gallaudet. The MarketPlace renovation by BPK Architects uses broad light sources and bright colors to bring energy and facilitate sightlines in the windowless space. Backlit and front-lit graphics connect to nature, while mirrors ensure that diners seated facing the wall remain connected to their surroundings. Beyond the American with Disabilities Act, LEED is piloting an inclusive design credit informed by the DeafSpace Design Guidelines, and universal design is a feature in WELL buildings.
IESNYC salutes the DeafSpace Institute and its focus on inclusive, universal design to benefit us all. Let’s create spaces that promote connections.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) 
Thomas Edison is far and away the person most identified with electric lighting. But it is not as widely known that from around age 12, he became totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. Edison remains one of the most famous and prolific inventors of all time. He is widely credited with inventing the incandescent light bulb (actually, he made important improvements) along with the system that brings electricity into our homes. “The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments,” he wrote. “I was never myself discouraged or inclined to be hopeless of success. I cannot say the same for all my associates."
He was a driven and sometimes overly hardworking, self-made man and entrepreneur. The Edison Electric Light company was established in 1878, followed by the Edison General Electric Company in 1889. At the time of his death, he had claimed 1,093 patents.
Edison wrote that he considered his deafness to be a blessing, because it helped him to think and read with total concentration, and to focus on his experiments without distraction. As a boy, Edison once noted, “my refuge was the Detroit Public Library. I started, it now seems to me, with the first book on the bottom shelf and I went through the lot, one by one. I didn’t read a few books. I read the library.” He reportedly told a gathering of hearing-impaired people, “Deaf people [like himself] should take to reading. It beats the babble of ordinary conversation.”
Edison worked for 5 years as an early telegraph operator, transcribing electromagnetic messages recorded as dots and dashes on strips of paper. For him, morse code was a practical mode of communication that he learned as a boy. This work spurred his early inventions in telegraphy, telephony, and ultimately, the phonograph. It is said to be his favorite invention. His first patent for the tinfoil recorder and player refers to “phonograph books, which will speak to blind people.”
The small Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park in Edison, NJ, and the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange, NJ, preserve his laboratory and thousands of artifacts. Both are worth a visit to remember the legacy of the deaf man who lit up the world.
