ADA Doesn't Go Far Enough
While working as an interior designer for the Albany Stratton Veterans Hospital in upstate NY, I befriended a paraplegic Vietnam veteran who served as a volunteer. As a favor to me, he was willing to tour the hospital to demonstrate what he could easily, or could not easily, access in spaces designed using ADA standards. That's when I learned first-hand that ADA (Americans w/ Disabilities Act) requirements address only a minimum of the disabled population. As a paraplegic, he could easily access certain spaces but a quadriplegic could not access them at all. The reverse is true for a quadriplegic. Left-handedness vs. right-handedness comes into play and bariatrics is another issue. The ADA is wonderful and has helped many people with disabilities, but it goes only so far and services a small portion of the disabled population. As a result of touring the hospital with my friend, I put myself in a wheelchair to experience his world and found it extremely difficult to navigate.
Going forward with my in-house design projects, I continued to meet the ADA requirements but knew it wasn't enough. In order to make the spaces more inclusive for as many people as possible, I began specifying "systems furniture" which is easily and readily re-assembled to address any unexpected "what ifs" in a diverse hospital population.
During an ER design project, I followed the mandatory ADA requirements but felt the space allotted for the triage area was too tight for our clientele. As fate would have it, I received a phone call and a bariatric veteran in a wheelchair couldn't get through the door opening. He was devastated and humiliated, but thoughtful design with flexible "systems furniture" made it possible to accommodate the foreseeable problem. The wall and door were quickly disassembled and the opening made larger.
The point to this is:
Buildings and communities must be designed for a diverse population using flexibility and adaptability--one size does not fit all. End users must be identified up front and included through the design process. Universal Design should be implemented to address as many people as possible regardless of their size, age or ability. Put yourself in a wheelchair for a day and see what it feels like to live in a world not designed for you.
