FEATURE ARTICLE
New UTS research “lifts the lid” on how wheelchair users access public bathrooms By Associate Prof Phillippa Carnemolla, Prof Simon Darcy, Barbara Almond, Farah Madon, Mark Relf AM
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ublic bathrooms are important places. The provision of accessible public bathrooms helps to ensure health, wellbeing and equitable access to our cities, public spaces, and communities. However, the real risk of falling off the toilet pan while reaching for toilet paper and avoiding public bathrooms altogether are two preliminary findings from a new research project “An Inclusive and Embodied Approach to Accessible Bathroom Design for Powered and Manual Wheelchair Users” by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Disability Research Network and industry collaborators Farah Madon & Mark Relf in partnership with Spinal Cord Injury Australia and Physical Disability Council NSW.
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The new project explores how accessible bathrooms are used by wheelchair users (both manual and power chair). It also looks at the effects of the Australian Design for Access and Mobility design code (AS1428:1) on public bathroom design. The design code takes a prescriptive approach to public bathroom design while making many assumptions about how wheelchair users access the toilets including how they use, approach and transfer onto the toilet pan. Most often, wheelchair users are considered as a single homogenous user group. The UTS research team shows that there is great diversity of accessible public bathroom use and preference within the wheelchair using community. The research team used a multimethod, evidence-based
ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTANTS IN ACCESS AUSTRALIA / ACCESS INSIGHT / SUMMER 2023-2024
