Lens #429

Towards a Rejected Text (adjustments made)

Recently the NHC Institute for Research in Construction Offense (NHC-IRCO) conducted an experiment in a 13 story office building.

This particular building had 4 identical stairwells and over 4000 daily occupants. The building housed some 3000 chairs, no time-keeping instruments and had few distinguishing features.
On 3 of the stairwells photoluminescent egress markings were put into place ranging from marking just the corners of the steps to full contiguous markings across each step and each handrail.
The 4th stairwell was lit with emergency lighting and no markings. It had noticeable graffiti on its walls that said: Don't Look Now.
With all this in place a surprise evacuation drill was initiated with all power shut down.

The results showed that while all of the stairwells where adequately navigated, the most appreciated and quickest moving egress occurred on the stairwell that had contiguous handrail markings and contiguous markings that clearly outlined the length of each step and the corners of each step. The stairwell that had emergency lighting was navigated without incident, but the steps were harder to see without photoluminescent outlines, which made for a slower evacuation and some stumbling. This was the 4th stairwell.

After the evacuation, the graffiti in the 4th stairwell had been altered. It read: Don't Look Now or Never.