Opening Doors Means Opening our Eyes
Access for all means designing for a few
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Designing to include people of all abilities is not the correction of an "instance" or "occurrence," it’s an act of empathy aimed at respectfully and generously meeting the multitude of ways that humans move, navigate, live and interact. It’s also an opportunity to solve for more than accessibility.
In his video essay, How Life Looks Through My ‘Whale Eyes,’ which was published in the New York Times, James Robinson gives viewers a poignant glimpse into what it’s like to navigate the world as part of the “sea of difference,” on which the “USS Normal” sails. Robinson, who graduated from Duke in 2020, deals with three different eye conditions that cause an array of challenges with how he sees — and how he is seen.
“We put so much time and effort into making sure that people who are perceived as different understand what it would be like if they were normal,” he says. “But we rarely ever do the opposite.
The architect’s job is to “do the opposite;” to push ourselves, as Robinson describes, into understanding what it would be like to swim in the ‘sea of difference,” and then design places that meet those differences with intelligence and grace. This inclusive approach is known as universal design or designing for accessibility — or just plain old good design.
JONES’ APPROACH:
Regardless of what we call it, it’s all about empathy. We have to be able to imagine how all kinds of different people with diverse abilities can access, use and enjoy the same place without compromise. Quite often, we are working on campuses constructed well before laws that govern universal access were enacted, which means we don’t have the luxury of starting from scratch.
Map accessibility barriers and pedestrian hazards.
Reinforce the unique nature of each campus' culture, population, topography, and landscape character. Combine a full range of social and environmental sustainability goals.
Identify projects with the greatest impact to users.
Logically integrate design solutions with infrastructure, maintenance, and operations regimens.
Think about when to disappear…and when to show up big: a grand architectural gesture may solve a connection issue or micro adjustments of grades, walkways, building entries, edge conditions, and material treatments can be designed to feel as if they have always been there (or should have been).
SUMMARY
Designing for access is so much more than ramps and handrails. It’s an empathetic and holistic way of thinking that aims to integrate the broadest possible set of opportunities of a given project in ways that bring people together rather than setting them apart. Solutions appear simple, or better yet, don’t appear at all to the everyday user. Which means they are underpinned by a complex process marked by thoughtful and thorough analysis of conditions, conducted by experienced field teams with comprehensive knowledge of the technical requirements of universal design, and a client committed to an inclusive outcome.
The all-important spaces between buildings in particular are plagued by impediments — whether the small moments of a single step or two, or the sweeping challenges of a sloped walk that exceeds code limits and runs for hundreds of feet. At the same time, sitework and landscape offer some of the best opportunities to achieve universal access and can be far less expensive than renovation or building anew. Creatively manipulating a site can shape a system of access that everyone uses in the same way — raising the grade so that no stairs are required, for example.
Architects, along with our colleagues in the landscape and engineering professions, have the opportunity with the built environment to help shrink the distances between people rather than magnify them. We would be foolish not to make the most of it.