The STA Living Lab is a weekly time set aside for us to share, learn and experience something new together. Our goal is to expand our design horizons, and to enrich our process and goal of creating design that improves the lives of people. This week we had an eye-opening experience, literally putting ourselves in another person’s shoes – or seat, in this case.
We are all quite adept at the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board (MAAB) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations. We know about the clearance requirements, the turning radius requirements, the accessible route, front approach and side approach dimensions, etc. – and it is a goal of ours to not only meet these requirements, but to design with a universal, inclusive approach. But, none of us had ever had to experience what it was actually like to navigate our environment in a wheelchair. So we took a turn, and we were in for a humbling experience.
Our first stop was our own MAAB / ADA compliant toilet rooms. Most of us could not navigate our way to reach the handle, let alone get through the door. After watching a few of us struggle, some team members learned how to best approach the door, but we all agreed that it was not intuitive.
Isioma noted, “This was a new and painful experience as I tried to navigate my legs with only my hands. I found most of the spaces hard to wheel through and also hard to stop myself from wheeling away when trying to move from space to space.”
Even though some were ultimately successful at getting into the toilet room, we realized that we had to use our legs and upper body strength to make our way. We wondered how people who were not as physically able as we are could possibly navigate. Helmsley noted, “One discovery that I made was how much we as designers underestimate the strength needed to wheel one’s own body weight up inclines and to open restroom doors.”
This concern continued when we went outside, and first tried to enter our building. As Bobby noted “What surprised me the most is something as simple as getting into our building main office door. In our current office, we have to enter a code on a keypad located on the hinge-side of the door and then open the door within 5 seconds. Given the position of the keypad, it required an almost impossibly quick maneuver to get out of the way of the door and then turn again to open it. Something that us able bodied people take for granted was made significantly harder just because of the location of the keypad.”
We then took our journey to the street, navigating a very difficult stretch of Broad Street, with very uneven sidewalks in great disrepair, and steep slopes opening onto the busy street. Again, we needed to use a great deal of strength to navigate the chair, keep it from getting stuck in sidewalk divots (far more than ½”), and even with our strength it was extremely difficult to ascend and maintain control on the steep slopes.
Our tour concluded with an impromptu stop at the beautiful new Contract Sources showroom. We navigated their accessible entrance and route around the showroom, and successfully tested out the accessible clearances at their new kitchen!
This was an incredible learning experience for our team, and we plan to continue to use the chair testing out areas on our projects. Isioma noted, “This experience taught me to be more mindful when designing with ADA intentions, because some of those requirements are still not comfortable enough for most people.”
It reinforced the importance of incorporating research into our design process, and how critical it is to understand the needs of the people for whom we design.
– Felice
