Эд Робертс Кампус и универсальный дизайн
Документ описывает Эд Робертс Кампус, предназначенный для поддержки и продвижения прав людей с ограниченными возможностями в Беркли, Калифорния. Он акцентирует внимание на универсальном дизайне, доступности и важности вовлечения сообщества в проектирование. Основная цель кампуса заключается в расширении прав и возможностей лиц с ограниченными возможностями для жизни в независимости и в выбранном ими сообществе.
Эд Робертс Кампус и универсальный дизайн
- 1. Строим независимость с нуля Эд РобертсКампус (ERC) Беркли, Калифорния, США Сьюзан Хендерсон Фонд просвещения и защиты прав инвалидов Партнер ERC 1
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- 3. Партнеры «Эд РобертсКампус» • Программа продвижения и отдыха в районе Залива • Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP) • Центр доступных технологий • Center for Accessible Technology (CTP) • Центр независимого проживания • Center for Independent Living (CIL) • Центр компьютерных технологий • Computer Technologies Program (CTP) • Фонд просвещения и защиты прав инвалидов • Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) • Зазеркалье • Through the Looking Glass (TLG) • Всемирный институт по ограниченным возможностям • World Institute on Disability (WID) 3
- 4. 10 важных вещей TenImportant Things 4
- 5. №1 Ни однанаша проблема не решается без нас #1: Nothing About Us Without Us 5
- 6. №2: Разделяя нашевидение #2: Sharing Our Vision Дом для семи партнеров ERC в здании с универсальным дизайном на транзитной станции. Наша общая цель – расширение прав людей с ограниченными возможностями и движение, направленное на независимое проживание, чтобы большее число людей с ограниченными возможностями могло жить самостоятельно в том сообществе, которое они сами выбрали. A home for the seven ERC Partners in a universally designed building at a transit station. Our shared goal is to expand the disability rights and the independent living movements so that more people with disabilities live independent lives in the community of their choice. 6
- 7. №3: Выбор месторасположения #3:Selecting a Location Парковка Эшби БАРТ и будущий дом для Эд Робертс Кампус The Ashby BART parking lot and future home of the Ed Roberts Campus 7
- 8. 1. Дизайн глубоковлияет на нас и наше чувство уверенности, удобства и контроля. Design profoundly influences us and our sense of confidence, comfort, and control. 2. Разные способности – обычная, а не особая ситуация, которая затрагивает большинство из нас, по крайней мере, какую-то часть нашей жизни. Variation in ability is ordinary, not special, and it affects most of us for at least part of our lives. Две основные идеи, лежащие в основе нашей веры в универсальный дизайн: Two core ideas behind our belief in universal design… № 4: Универсальный дизайн #4: Universal Design
- 9. №5: Выбираем архитектора #5:Selecting an Architect 9 Bill Leddy, AIA Leddy Maytum Stacey Architects «Понятие дизайна намного шире, чем «как все должно выглядеть» "Design is about everything, not just how things look."
- 10. 1. В чем,по Вашему мнению, заключается видение Эд Робертс Кампус (ERC)? Как Ваша команда поможет ERC реализовать это видение? What do you believe to be the vision of the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC)? How will your team help the ERC realize its vision? 2. Каким образом Вы вовлечете клиента, других членов команды и проживающих неподалеку людей? Пожалуйста, наглядно продемонстрируйте методы, которые Вы использовали, и полученный в результате дизайн среды. How will you involve the client, other team members, and the neighborhood? Please demonstrate the methods you have used and the resulting environments.10 Четыре вопроса, на которые архитекторы отвечали на собеседовании Four Questions the architects addressed in their interviews
- 11. Четыре вопроса, накоторые архитекторы отвечали на собеседовании Four Questions the architects addressed in their interviews 3. Какие возможности для полного использования системы общественного транспорта, обслуживающего ERC, существуют? Каким будет Ваш подход к интеграции транзитного доступа в проект объекта? What opportunities exist to take full advantage of the public transit system(s) that service the ERC? What would be your approach to integrate transit access into the facility design? 3. Опишите аспекты универсального дизайна Ваших проектов, и как универсальный дизайн способствует развитию проекта. Объясните, каким образом вы интегрируете экологические принципы проектирования. Describe universal design aspects of your projects and how universal design drives the development of a project. Explain how you integrate ecological design principles. 11
- 12. № 6: Ключевойвопрос для принятия решений #6: Guiding Question for Making Decisions Может ли человек независимо от его или ее ограниченных возможностей войти в центр и использовать элементы здания самостоятельно? Can a person, no matter what his or her disability, enter and use the features in the building independently? 12
- 13. №7: «Дуэль сограниченными возможностями» #7: “Dueling Disabilities” 13
- 14. 14 №7: «Дуэль сограниченными возможностями» #7: “Dueling Disabilities”
- 15. №8: Ориентировка наместности #8: Wayfinding 15
- 16. №8: Ориентировка наместности: главный вход #8: Wayfinding: Front Door 16
- 17. №8: Ориентировка наместности #8: Wayfinding 17
- 18. №8: Ориентировка наместности: БАРТ #8: Wayfinding: BART 18
- 19. №8: Ориентировка наместности: вывески, указатели и поручни #8: Wayfinding: Signage & Hand Rails 19
- 20. №8: Ориентировка наместности: звук #8: Wayfinding: Sound 20
- 21. №9: Запасные выходы #9:Emergency Exiting 21
- 22. №9: Запасные выходы #9:Emergency Exiting 22
- 23. № 10: Эстетика #10:Aesthetics 23
- 24. Ножные кнопки влифте Elevator Door Paddles 24
- 25. Краны, вмонтированные сбокуот раковины Side Mounted Sink Hardware 25
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- 27. Электронные замки длякарточек на стероидах Card Key Readers on Steroids 27
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- 29. №11: Еще однаважная вещь #11: One More Important Thing Подвергайте сомнению принятые решения и прислушивайтесь к другим мнениям Question Decisions and Listen 29
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Editor's Notes
- #2 [Slide 1 – Introduction]Good day. My name is Susan Henderson. I am the executive director of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, fondly known as DREDF. DREDF is a national disability rights law and policy center in the United States. We were founded by and continue to be led by individuals with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities. I am a woman with a physical disability—I have a leg amputation. It is a pleasure to be here and I'm excited to be sharing the story of the Ed Roberts Campus with you. Thank you for having me. Since 1997, I have been a member of the board of directors of the Ed Roberts Campus (the ERC). The ERC is a nonprofit organization that was formed to dream about, plan, raise funds, design, build and manage the universally designed Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, California. The members of the board represent the seven disability rights and independent living organizations that came together to build the ERC. On the screen is a photograph of the signature helical red-sided ramp inside of the ERC. We've come to know the ERC's story as, "Building Independence From the Ground Up."
- #3 [Slide 2 – Photo of Ed Roberts] The idea of a building came about when Ed Roberts, one of the leaders in the US disability rights/independent living movement died in 1995. On the screen is a black and white photo of Ed Roberts taken in 1994 when he was 55 years old. Ed, who sports a beard, is seated in his power wheelchair with his ventilator. Ed was well known in Berkeley, where he had gone to college, and where he and colleagues had started the first independent living center in the world, the Berkeley Center for Independent Living. Ed was paralyzed as a result of contracting polio when he was 14 years old. He used a power wheelchair and a ventilator. Ed and his mother, Zona, became accidental disability rights activists when they challenged the high school principal's decision to deny him a high school diploma because he hadn't met the school's physical education and drivers education requirements. They went before the school board and pointed out the absurdity of the requirements, and Ed was given his diploma. After a few years attending the local community college, Ed applied to and was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley. He sought financial assistance from the California Department of Rehabilitation, but was denied support based on a rehabilitation counselor's opinion that he was too severely disabled to be employable. The university backed Ed's admission and he moved to campus in 1962. There wasn't accessible student housing in 1962, so the university offered living quarters at the university hospital. Ed agreed under one condition – his rooms were treated as a dormitory and not a medical facility. The university agreed and Ed was soon joined by other wheelchair using students. After graduating, Ed and other people he met at Berkeley saw the need for community services to support independent living. They lobbied for state funding to start the Center for Independent Living (CIL), and one of the first independent living centers in the world was founded. In 1976, then (and now) California Governor Jerry Brown, in an ironic twist, named Ed Roberts the director of the California Department of Rehabilitation. The agency that had labeled him too disabled to work. After leaving the Department of Rehabilitation in 1983, Ed joined with another Berkeley activist, Judy Heumann, to start the World Institute on Disability—also one of the ERC's partners. Judy is now a Special Advisor on International Disability Rights in the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
- #4 [Slide 3 – The ERC Partners]After his death in 1995, local government officials from the City of Berkeley and members of the disability rights community came together to memorialize Ed. The earliest ideas included naming a street, a park or a public building. It will probably not be a surprise to you, but there were few buildings with good access in our city. Access typically came about during retrofits after the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) was enacted in the US in 1990. The idea blossomed into building a truly accessible home for the seven organizations that grew out of the Center for Independent Living. As the slide shows, fifteen years later in November 2010, the seven ERC Partners: The Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP)The Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT)The Center for Independent Living (CIL)The Computer Technologies Program (CTP)Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)Through the Looking Glass (TLG)and the World Institute on Disability (WID) came together under the same roof.
- #5 [Slide 4 – 10 Important Things]The process took 15 years, which makes for a lot to talk about, but in the interest of time, I'm going to share the critically important issues that arose along the journey. Sometimes we knew the importance of an issue at the time, but some of what I'll share with you today are things that hindsight has made us realize were important.
- #6 Slide 5 – Important thing #1#1: Nothing About Us Without UsIt was very important for people with disabilities to lead the development of the ERC and make informed decisions about its design. Undoubtedly, you're all familiar with the disability community's motto "Nothing about us without us." We use it to make sure that our voices are heard during the development of social and political policies that will impact our lives. We knew it was important for us to lead the development of the ERC. In 1995, the Americans with Disabilities Act was only five yeas old, and few in the design community had embraced the principles of accessibility, or were familiar with the principles of universal design. We didn't know much about construction, but we knew a lot about access after years of encountering barriers in the built environment. Individuals on the ERC board of directors and our design committees included people who are blind, people with low vision, people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and Electromagnetic Sensitivities, people who use wheelchairs and other mobility aids, people with a limited range of upper body movement, single, double and quadruple amputees, people with varying functional limitations, people of short stature, people with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, people who are deaf, people with cognitive disabilities and their personal assistants, people with seizure disorders, parents of children with disabilities, and people who work with children with disabilities. We were a representative bunch. I like this photograph on the screen. It's a photo taken at one of our weekly construction meetings that shows a table top filled with white construction hard hats, and the white cane used by the chair of our board, Dmitri Belser.And even with all this expertise at hand, we still overlooked some things or simply weren't able, usually because of cost constraints, go as far as we would have liked to ensure access for everyone. I'll talk more about the things we could have done better later.
- #7 [Slide 6 – Important thing #2] #2:Sharing Our Vision We were dreaming big for a bunch of small organizations. None of the ERC Partner organizations had a budget over two million dollars. We always believed that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. We shared a vision of our future home, and we had to articulate that vision in a manner that could be understood by funders, architects, engineers, contractors, and others so our dream would be realized. Our vision was simple and included the physical design and programmatic goals of the ERC. On the screen it says, "A home for the seven ERC Partners in a universally designed building at a transit station. Our shared goal is to expand the disability rights and the independent living movements so that more people with disabilities live independent lives in the community of their choice." Over the next seven years, meeting once a month or more, volunteering our time and cajoling others into volunteering their time, we brainstormed about what we wanted, and what we didn't want. We wrote grant proposals, hired consultants to help guide us in the world of real estate development, and wrote more grant proposals. In 2003, we had finally raised enough money to hire an architect. Choosing the right architect was another important decision.
- #8 [Slide 7 – Important Thing #3] #3:Selecting a Location For our employees, the individuals we serve, and as part of our desire to create a sustainable community, it was important that our building be easily accessible by public transit. People with disabilities are a transit-dependent population and locating near public transportation was very important. One of our biggest breaks came when the City of Berkeley and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), which operates the regional metro system, approached us with a proposal to sell a portion of a parking lot at one of the BART stations in Berkeley. Not only did the site match perfectly our transit requirements, it also opened the door to significant federal funds dedicated to transit oriented design projects. This slide shows a photo of the east parking lot at the Ashby BART Station on the day we took possession in August 2008.
- #9 [Slide 8 – Important Thing #4]#4: Universal DesignIn case it isn't obvious, we wanted our building to be designed using the core principles of universal design. We wanted to promote the use of universal design, and we wanted our building to be a physical representation that disability is natural part of the human condition.As the slide indicates, we embraced two ideas about design: - Design profoundly influences us and our sense of confidence, comfort, and control. - Variation in ability is ordinary, not special, and it affects most of us for at least part of our lives.
- #10 [Slide 9 – Important Thing #5] #5: Selecting an ArchitectIn 2003, we had finally raised enough money to hire an architect. Choosing the right architect was another important decision.We ultimately chose Bill Leddy of the San Francisco firm, LeddyMaytum Stacey Architects. This slide shows Bill standing behind one of the red panels (made from recycled milk crates) that line the circular ramp at the ERC. It was clear to us that Bill and his partners at LMS understood our vision. He told us in the interview that “Design is about everything, not just how things look.”We wanted an architect who would share our passion for universal design and social justice. We believe that access is a social justice issue, and it was imperative that our architects understood that our building not only be accessible, but that it send a message of equality, inclusion, and independence. We wanted an architect who also saw design as a social justice issue. Working with consultants, we developed a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to begin the architect selection process. The RFQ asked architects to write about universal design and sustainable design. We received about 15 responses and selected five teams to be interviewed. For the interviews, we brought together a team of architects (with and without disabilities), urban planners, transit experts, and building contractors to help us interview and select the finalists. The ERC board made the final selection. For the first round of interviews we asked the teams to address a series of questions that we hoped would provide us with a sense of the architects' sincere commitment to universal design and the challenges that designing an environment for individuals with a wide range of disabilities would pose.
- #11 [Slide 10 – Questions]A sampling of the questions, written on the next two slides, were: 1. What do you believe to be the vision of the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC)? How will your team help the ERC realize its vision? 2. How will you involve the client, other team members, and the neighborhood? Please demonstrate the methods you have used and the resulting environments.
- #12 [Slide 11 – More questions]3. What opportunities exist to take full advantage of the public transit system(s) that service the ERC? What would be your approach to integrate transit access into the facility design? 4. Describe universal design aspects of your projects and how universal design drives the development of a project. Explain how you integrate ecological design principles.
- #13 [Slide 12 – Important Thing #6] #6 Guiding Question for Making Decisions There was no question that the building would be designed using the principles of universal design. We wanted the ERC to be a place that served the widest range of people, operating in the widest range of situations, without special or separate design. One of the tools we used when we were planning and making decisions about the building, was to ask ourselves, "Can a person, no matter what his or her disability, enter and use the features in the building independently?" At first it appears to be a pretty straightforward simple question. But once we began to examine how individuals would interact with the environment and specific building features, the question turned out to expose complexities involved in human interactions with the built environment.
- #14 Slide 13 - Important Thing #7 #7: "Dueling Disabilities" For example, the highly textured floor surfaces (truncated domes) that visually impaired white cane users rely on as directional clues can be uncomfortable for people who use wheelchairs and people with balance issues, like people who use prosthetic legs—like me. And the hard surfaces that wheelchair users like to roll on can create acoustical problems for the hard of hearing. Working with our various stakeholders, we made trade-offs in some instances and found compromises in others. The architects developed different textured floor surfaces that are easier on wheelchairs than the typical raised buttons and they supplemented these surfaces by using contrasting colors to define paths of travel versus open space. To offset the impact on acoustics created by using concrete, our architects angled the walls to diffuse sound and used a special stretch fabric on the Atrium ceiling to absorb sound. The next photo is a closer look at the ceiling fabric. It also turned out that while wheelchair users and others with limited upper body dexterity or strength loved the sensors that automatically open doors when you approach, some blind users were wary of them. They worried that someone who couldn't see the door opening could be hit by the door. In the case of this 'dueling disability' we ended up using the sensors. Wherever the doors swung (versus sliding doors), we set the doors to open very slowly. They also make a noticeable sound as they open. The photo on this slide is a picture of individuals with and without disabilities seated in the Atrium with its concrete floors. The large red-sided helical ramp is shown in the background. The dark rougher surface signals a path of travel, and the lighter, smooth surface is our more open space. These surfaces are present inside and at the front entrance of the building. You can also see the white fabric that we used on the atrium ceiling to absorb sound.
- #15 Slide 14 - Important Thing #7 (continued) #7: "Dueling Disabilities”This photo shows the ceiling with a close up of the fabric.
- #16 Slide 15 - Important Thing #8 #8: Way Finding
- #17 Slide 16 - Important Thing #8 #8: Wayfinding: Front Door This is a photo of the front door off of the plaza facing Adeline Street. The front of the building faces west. Buses and cars drop people off in front of and across the street from the building. A black, rough textured pathway leads from the sidewalk to the automatic opening front doors. The name of the campus is above the doorway as well as the street number. There was some concern that the full-windowed front of the building would make it difficult to find the front door, but the textured contrasting concrete along with the signage seems to have mitigated our concern.The two columns at the sidewalk are sensors that flash toward oncoming traffic when someone is about to enter the crosswalk to cross the street.
- #18 Slide 17 - Important Thing #8 #8: Wayfinding: Back Door This slide shows the back door entrance off of BART's parking lot on the west side. I showed you an image of the parking lot on the day we took possession.Again, the name of the building is above the alcove that announces the back entry to the ERC. There are also door paddles and a card key reader, which are additional cues that there's an entrance. And of course, at all entrances there are signs with raised lettering and Braille with our name.
- #19 Slide 17 - Important Thing #8 #8: Wayfinding: BART Station This photo shows one of my favorite places in the ERC – the entrance from the BART station to the elevator lobby in the ERC's parking garage. This photo is looking from the BART station toward the automatic doors that open into the ERC's garage elevator lobby. Again, the name of the building is above the area that announces the entry from BART into the ERC. There is also directional signage located throughout the station. You can see one of the ceiling mounted signs to the upper right. The BART tile flooring gives way to our dark rough pathway concrete, also announcing a path of travel. To use the ramp, you turn to the right when you leave the station. For the stairs, you turn to the left.
- #20 Slide 19 - Important Thing #8 #8: Wayfinding: Signage and Hand Rails I've already talked about how the concrete floors were prepared to denote a path of travel for people who use white canes. We also wanted to use bright and contrasting colors to cue people to entrances throughout the building, so we used blade signs in bright red and white to announce every public doorway and of course each entrance has a sign with raised lettering and Braille. Consistency also helps us understand how to navigate the building, and it's especially helpful for people with intellectual This photo shows our seven foot wide hallways, the blade signs as well as two other wayfinding tools: the wooden handrails on our walkway panels, and the top edge of the wainscoting. Both are used as a guide for people with visual impairments. An interesting aside about the wainscot. No matter how careful wheelchair users are, the wheelchair's footrests are not friendly to walls and doors. We wanted to prevent damage to our walls without having to worry about constant upkeep like painting or retiling. We settled on a material from The Netherlands, Trespa. It takes quite an impact from a footrest to dent the Trespa. And yes, we had fun testing it.
- #21 Slide 20 - Important Thing #8 #8: Wayfinding: Sound During the design process the idea of using sound or other technology to assist with wayfinding came up a lot and we batted a number of ideas back and forth. We considered whether to install radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags or sonic technology, but ruled it out because we wanted to use a more low-tech solution. We also realized that the rather large Atrium, which has a set of meeting rooms to the south, needed a visual feature at the north end. A blind board member suggested the fountain. We can direct people to walk toward or away from the sound of the splashing water. It's particularly helpful because the main set of public bathrooms is across from the fountain. This photo shows individuals using the public seating in the Atrium (on the smooth concrete that denotes open space) with the low red-tiled fountain at the end. The two-story wall above the fountain is covered with bamboo paneling and includesa peephole to break up the massive façade of the wall. The sound created by the five gentle 'bubblers' reaches to the front entrance of the ERC.In the end, we received mixed reviews from blind users. While some people like the constant sound of the water, others said it was distracting.
- #22 Slide 21 - Important Thing #9 #9: Emergency Exiting: The RampThe ERC is located between two active, large fault lines. We're very near the Hayward Fault to our east, and the San Andreas Fault to our west. The Loma Prieta Fault lies to our south. In 1989, many individuals with disabilities, especially those who use wheelchairs, were stranded in the upper stories of buildings when a large earthquake on the Loma Prieta shook the San Francisco Bay Area. Electricity was off in some locations for more than three days, so elevators didn't work. Emergency crews were dealing with major disasters such as the collapse of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the collapse of a major freeway in Oakland, and building collapses in the Marina District in San Francisco. People were stuck and they recalled the helplessness they felt when we discussed building plans. We agreed at the outset that every floor had to be ramped so we weren't dependent on emergency crews to exit the building when the elevators shut down in case of an emergency. The helical ramp meets our need. The ramp has also become the iconic symbol of the Ed Roberts Campus. It's clearly visual through the glass façade on the front of the building—purposely so. This photo, used earlier, shows the red-sided, suspension ramp beneath another of my favorite features, the huge circular skylight. I tried to convince my partners that we should, in the tradition of Batman's bat-signal, shine a spotlight with the cut out shape of the ramp up through the oculus into the night sky. It has happened, yet.
- #23 Slide 22 - Important Thing #9 #9: Emergency Exiting: It happenedSoon after we moved into the building one of the ceiling fans above the acoustical ceiling tiles in one of the offices malfunctioned. Because the employees could smell burning, but couldn't see whether there was a fire, they set the alarm and called the fire department. The exiting couldn't have gone better. Designated employees in each office managed evacuation and floor wardens confirmed that everyone had exited. All of us on the second floor used the ramp to exit to our area of refuge in the BART parking lot. We had evacuated the entire building before the fire department arrived. To get an idea of the diversity of disabilities represented at the ERC, this slide is a snapshot of the crowd outside that day. It includes people who are blind, individuals who are deaf (you can see them signing to one another) and an elderly gentleman who uses a walker (a walking frame).
- #24 Slide 23 – Important Thing #10#10:Aesthetics The community was adamant that the building not look or feel like an institution – they didn't want the ERC to look like a hospital or a nursing home. We wanted the space to be light and open and welcoming to everyone. And, we wanted to showcase the ramp and universal design. We wanted to shed light on disability to help remove lingering stigma and feelings of pity. For far too many years, people with disabilities have been segregated and institutionalized behind closed (and locked) doors. We wanted community meeting rooms, gathering room for special events, and space for art exhibits and live performances. The Atrium and Ramp Lobby can hold about 400 people and Osher Education Center can host meetings of about 100 people – with room for wheelchairs and service animals. Our walls display beautiful art by people with developmental disabilities and we've already hosted a number of cultural events – films, dance performances, poetry readings, memorials and weddings. And, of course meetings and lectures. The ERC has brought our community together through planning, design and now by 'living' together I thought I’d start off a series of a few more photos showcasing the beauty of the ERC by showing you what a big difference the environment of the ERC was for my organization. This slide is a side-by-side Before and After of our offices. It shows the primarily female staff of Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in front of our old concrete brick converted warehouse of an office just before we moved in November 2011 and after the move, under the skylight in the ERC's Ramp Lobby. Quite a difference.
- #25 Slide 24 – Image of Elevator Foot Paddle Now I'd like to share a few photos of the building and some of the features that users seem to especially appreciate: This is a photo of DREDF's Mary Lou Breslin's (one of our brilliant founders) feet operating the foot paddles that we included in the elevators. We have oversized, double-doored, talking elevators that go from the ERC BART Station/Garage level to the second floor. The large size makes it easy for wheelchair users to turn around, with the added benefit of avoiding bumping into each other when there's more than one wheelchair user in the cab. The double doors open on opposite sides at each level.
- #26 Slide 25 - Kitchen Sink side mounted faucet During one of the many, many design discussions one of our board members who doesn't have arms said she'd always dreamed of having a sink that had hardware mounted on the side to make it easier for her to reach with her chin. Her wish became our command. The kitchen sinks in the office suites have a side-mounted faucet as show in this picture.
- #27 Slide 26 - Upper and Lower Door Paddles I've mentioned that many of our doors open automatically using motion sensors. Automatic doors are great and I've become used to them. After a few months of being at the ERC, I found myself standing in front of the doors in a shoe store waiting for them to open. Where the doors don't have motion sensors, they have upper and lower door paddles. You can use your hands, shoulder, chin, feet or wheelchair footrests to open doors throughout the ERC. This is a photo of the double door paddles. Automatic doors are like curb cuts – everyone finds them handy at some point. On top of the obvious population of people with mobility impairments, and people with limited strength, people with their arms full of things or children, and people temporarily using crutches find door paddles awesome.
- #28 Slide 27 – Card Key Readers on Steroids Our list of Important Things is infused with the expectation that people can enter and use the building independently. That meant that we substituted a card key system for traditional keys and locks. After including standard-sized card key readers that have a range of about eight inches in our construction drawings, we discovered they weren't going to work for a number of people. Particularly, people with limited or no reach. At about a cost of $300 each, including pulling the necessary wiring to the card key pad location, we replaced the short-range card key reader pads with pads with a range four times greater, about 32 inches. It turned out that even 32 inches wasn't enough for some users, but we were able to buy card keys with batteries and antennas that boost their signals. This slide shows the smaller and large card key readers and a card key with a boost.
- #29 Slide 28 – Restrooms The bathrooms may have been the primary topic at more meetings and consumed more of our thought processing than any other rooms at the ERC. I could spend an hour on them alone, but to spare you I thought I'd list the universal design features and two additional features that you're unlikely to find in a public building except for one that serves people with disabilities. The multiuse bathrooms are very generous when it comes to size and include two accessible stalls to accommodate people who are dependent on either the left or right side grab bar. Every stall has grab bars. The fixtures are high contrast, that is, the porcelain is white against a darker tile background—you can see that in one of the photos on this slide. The toilet is mounted on a dark blue tiled wall. The toilets have automatic flushers, the faucets, soap dispensers, towel dispenser and hand dryers are all operated by sensor. The doors have sensors so they open automatically when you exit.We ran into a conflict with the automatic flushers that we hadn't expected. The sensor-operated flushers prevented us from installing back supports because the supports blocked the sensor. Solving this issue is on our growing list of to-dos.There are six family/attendant restrooms. Two of the family/attendant restrooms have a lift system and adult changing tables as shown in this slide.
- #30 [Slide 29 - One More Important Thing] #11: Question Decisions Opaque walkway panels – really? It would have been presumptuous of us to think that all of our decisions were correct. We were certain that some decisions would come back to haunt us, and that we would completely miss opportunities, and we were right. We did a good job, but we've discovered some things we could have done better. Here's one example One of the lingering universal design issues that we've been thinking about is the use of opaque white panels on the second floor walkways. A person who walks can see over the panels down into the atrium and lobby. Most people who use wheelchairs don't have the same view. During design, the architects led a discussion about whether the walkway panels should be transparent or opaque. We had many users in the room -- wheelchair users, people with vision impairments, and people with hearing impairments, for instance. The final decision was to use opaque panels. The tipping point came down to privacy. People felt they'd be exposed if the panels were transparent. They felt uncomfortable that people on the first floor would be looking up at them at an unflattering angle. There was also discussion about whether the transparency could trigger vertigo or confusion for some users. No one in the room considered the unequal viewing opportunity. Soon after we moved in, wheelchair users began to comment that they didn't have a view from the walkways because of the white panels. The same is true of the red panels on our iconic ramp. Remedying this issue is nothing that that money and thoughtful design can't repair. We just don't have the money, yet. There are a few more examples, but my time is up. Of course I'd be happy to share them with anyone who wants to learn from our mistakes and experience, including how sustainable design dovetailed with our aim to make the ERC hospitable to people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and how seven scruffy nonprofits raised $52 million dollars.
- #31 Slide 30 – Educating the Uninitiated I thought I'd close with this photo of 43 eight and nine year olds from a local elementary school. They're studying "power" and their teacher asked if they could visit the ERC to explore how the disability community has generated and uses power. We were amazed by their questions and reactions to our environment. They reminded us of why we built the ERC and how it has brought us together to build and share power for the greater good.