Vital Signs Case Study
ARCH 592: Environmental Controls Systems II

Café Paradiso
Eugene, Oregon

Vicki Merkel
Deonne Schoner

GTF:  Joe Snider

Description:

Café Paradiso is a café on the pedestrian mall at Olive and Broadway in Eugene, Oregon.  It is a roughly rectangular space situated on the southeastern corner of a commercial block. (Click here for images)  The south facing wall and front half of the east facing wall are heavily glazed.   The flooring in the front half of the café is semi-gloss brick.  This floor material is source of glare in addition to the glossy table tops.    The back half of the café is windowless, carpeted and has a lowered ceiling with relatively few recessed can light fixtures.  Lamps are placed on the  majority of the tables in the back half to raise the lighting levels,  and thus reduce the glare when facing the front of the café.  It has a variety of seating made up of café chairs around tables and couches throughout the space.  An outdoor patio is furnished with small café tables and chairs.
 
 
 
 

As we toured the café we noticed the high contrast in lighting between the front and back areas which raised the following questions

          -    Do patrons complain about the extreme differences in the lighting of different areas of the space?
          -    Do people change where they sit due to the glare from the tables and the floor to ceiling windows?
          -    Would the glare be cut down if the ceiling height were consistent?
          -    Were the task lamps on the tables an afterthought?
 

We developed the following hypothesis:

During daylight hours customers avoid the darker rear area in favor of the strongly
daylit section and in the evening the preference switches to the lamplit rear area.
 
 
 
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