A Response to Architects Disable: A Challenge to Transform

Yvonne Farrell

When you read an article like this one, it can be a humbling experience.

Called Architects disable: a challenge to transform, Rob Kitchin throws down the gauntlet to us as architects by criticising severely our attitude to disability. In his view, our profession as presently practiced and taught, excludes.

Kitchin's paper argues that disabled people cannot participate in activities and events, because they are not catered for. The Architecture disables and architects create 'Apartheid designs'.

He points out that things we take for granted - going to the cinema or into a pub socially - isolate those people who cannot gain access, who cannot hear, who cannot see. He forcibly states�" The bottom line is architects design the buildings, it is therefore architects who disable"

He calls for the State to subsidise making existing architecture accessible. He does not accept that cost can be a contributing factor for the omission of elements of equality. He requires that Architecture fully engage with philosophies of social justice, with a moral imperative to address the disabling consequences of architectural design.

In his view, the tenets of universal design should not be viewed as additions to a toolkit, or as something to be occasionally or selectively used, but as a fundamental shift in how architecture is practiced. He proposes investigation into new modes of emancipatory practice. His belief is that the danger lies in professionals thinking they know the answer. He requires that consultations take place with all users of a building.

Finally, he challenges us to become the champions of universal design, where the RIAI, the AAI and other architectural bodies become key players in reforming the codes and standards of practice so that universal design becomes a core feature of Irish architecture.

I do not believe that we as architects deliberately ignore or exclude thoughts of how to make spaces and buildings accessible to all 'Other-ness' sometimes is hard to hear. In the busy-ness of business, some types of realities, which are different, do go un-noticed and un-observed. Clearer and stronger voices get their requirements firmly placed on the agenda. Its not that we, as architects, don't care - we care about a huge range of social, physical and cultural issues every time we put pencil to paper. Its more a case that our architectural humanity and compassion does need to go further than legislation, to make a seamless, integrated architecture.

You would have to spend time, actually in a wheelchair, to even begin to appreciate the difficulties that are encountered by people with disabilities every day of their lives. You would have to be the parent of young children to realise that cobblestones are difficult to negotiate and fire doors hard to open when pushing a buggy. You would have to be eighty five with severe arthritis to know, that even though there is a lift in the building, the fact that the lift is beyond your comfortable walking distance, means it may as well not be there, weak wrists find the heavy fire doors hard to push open, the simplest step becomes a precipice. You would have to be....

That beautiful house in Bordeaux completed in 1998 by Rem Koolhaas is a poetic example of inclusion, involvement and architecture. Inclusion is the starting point for the architecture, because the client had a voice, a face, direct contact with the architects and the architect was able to translate that human need into a new reality.

"Contrary to what you expect 'the Bordeaux client told the architect. "I do not want a simple house. I want a complex house, because the house will define my world�.

Times Magazine wrote in December 1998�"Built for a wealthy client in a wheelchair who asked that it be made as complex as possible, the house has three stories, in each of which is a 3m by 3.5m hole. The hole is filled only when the client's 3m by 3.5m elevator, which is also his office, is in that square. Get it? Rather than making allowances for its disabled owner, each floor is really complete only when he's there. Abled people are inconvenienced for him".

In his article Rob Kitchin not only severely criticises the architectural profession but also criticises the way future generations are taught in relation to disability. I have a tremendous respect for the amount each student learns each year in a School of Architecture. Students absorb an incredible amount of information in their focused years in College. There is no reason why specific disability audits and in-depth social - cultural - disability inclusion issues could not form an integral part of project subject matter.

In my own experience this happened very successfully in the UCD School of Architecture when teaching alongside Ruth Morrow. Ruth taught us to consider and to remember to include - to close our eyes, to open our eyes. She had memorable teaching techniques, which showed us how much trust is involved when you have no vision. She made us marvel at our haptic sense. Through her eyes, students saw that some of us were tall - sometimes very tall or small - sometimes very small, students began checking and challenging the accepted view of 'average'. Ruth's special remit in the School of Architecture in UCD was to focus on the inclusion of difference and disability.

About fifteen years ago, I remember we watched an elderly gentleman topple as he tried to enter our local Library, his visit to the Library being a significant social event of his week. After we helped him to his feet, we reported the incident to the Librarian, who asked us to put our observations on paper, so that the Library staff could put pressure on the powers - that - be to allocate the funds to put in a much needed ramp. That was a long time ago and things have changed so much that it is now a legal requirement for every new public building to provide proper access. Such elderly gentlemen now gain access to Libraries, without the need to be rescued. That red brick & granite Library now has its own access ramp.

We have just completed a school for five hundred secondary school students in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. The site given for the Project was on the side of a hill. In landscape terms, it was important for us that a sense of the original sloping hillside would form part of the everyday experience of all the students in the new school. It was our intention from the beginning of the design process to form a fluid and integrated circulation pattern that would be used by everyone - disabled and abled. The school is accessible by ramps, paths and steps which converge on the wide ramped space of the main entrance. Two main corridors, one at a higher level, the other 1125mm lower, are connected by two ramping corridors. Classrooms either look out towards the surrounding countryside or are wrapped around a series of courtyards. A strategically placed lift beside a stair connects to the Sports Hall, which is a further 1500mm below the lower corridor.

Another school, which we have designed for Milford, Co. Donegal is also on a sloping site. When five or six hundred students are involved, we are very aware that we are, in fact, designing a small town, which works from 8.30am to 4pm. Schools also are used by the community in the evenings. This is an important aspect of schools, as they increase their role in providing more adult/senior citizen learning opportunities, especially as we as a society are living longer. Schools, as useful public buildings, must take difference, disability and age into account and ease of access can form the underlying framework of organisational and architectural decisions.

Kitchin does not accept that cost can be a contributing factor for the omission of elements of equality. He's right, but sometimes it is hard, within a restricted budget, to be that bit more generous with area, specify that detail that will last longer, find that handle which will act just that little bit more smoothly. It may be that we can learn from the 1% for Art. Would it not be a terrific humanitarian contribution to have an additional percentage of each budget dedicated to "Elements of Equality" (and tax deductible?)

There are a number of Client Bodies, with whom we work, for example, the Office of Public Works, University College Dublin, Trinity College - who require that consideration of disability goes beyond current legal requirements. They want to 'lead the field' in consideration of disability issues.

In our office, we have been working over the past number of years with the Department of Education and Science and North Kildare Educate Together Project to build an integrated primary school, which includes classrooms for children with autism. It is through the process of working closely with the school's dynamic Board of Management, the enlightened principal and staff, the committed people in the Department of Education and Science that this project is nearing completion. We, as architects, through dialogue with those working closely with these children and through an understanding of the ethos of the school itself, developed a strategy of integration. The experience of people in the Lisanally Special School, Armagh City, has been invaluable in helping to evaluate tried and tested experience- that the ethos of the school is children centred- that everyone involved in the school is there for each child. The staff endeavour to look at the world from the child's perspective and when this project started, we learnt that we were not dealing with autistic children, but with children with autism.

I use the above example to balance Rob Kitchin's assertion that the danger lies in the professionals' conviction that they know all the answers. I believe that we are part of a whole new generation of people, who happen to be architects, who know that they don't know all the questions. It is a skill to listen. It is a skill to work together in a group, to expand an idea, to make a new world with people, where life experience is enriching.

As practicing architects, we reach out for The Building Regulations and Technical Guidance Document Part M, Access for all, Buildings for Everyone, Equality Legislation, etc. to ensure best practice. It may be that an in-depth Disability Audit should form a legal part of the Planning Process, and have a legal standing. There could be a checklist, a description of the philosophy and ethos of the overall design, as well as the intention of proposed details. It would also establish a methodology whereby critical issues are highlighted at the Planning stage. Nothing focuses the mind like a legal requirement. It is good for us as individuals and it is important for us as architects to remember our own humanity and be aware of how lucky we are. We can sometimes get a glimpse of parallel lives from those close to us or through the media. The RTE Radio programme Audio scope and Outside the Box are places, where we can hear the voices and lives of people with disabilities, and how they, as ordinary, extraordinary and courageous individuals - go about their daily lives, work, go on holiday. Where else would you hear an interview with a young woman with restricted vision, who is a fire eater/performer - refreshingly open and willing to engage with Life?

Rob Kitchin's challenge to transform is provocative and thought-provoking. 12-18% of our population are dealing with their own disabilities every day. The more you think about it, the more you think about it. We just have to do it, together. This year is European Year of People with Disabilities.

Yvonne Farrell graduated from UCD with a degree in Architecture in 1974. She is a director of Grafton Architects and has been a studio lecturer at UCD since 1978. She is a visiting critic to various European universities.