Friday, November 28, 2008

accessible design...

i attended a seminar on tuesday night past hosted by the interiors assocaition which focused on parts M and K of the building regs.

its good to keep abreast of these things and current legislations but what i thought was going to be a very dull and boring 2 hours was actually very interesting and i came away with a whole new train of thought on accessible design.

a few thoughts that stuck with me form the seminar are
  • its not the building that is disabling its the environment thats disabling
  • its not the building that has to be accessible, its the service that has to be accessible
there is however a bit of a conflict there between compliance nad best practice, however i got to thinking there arent enough of us designing for disabled users and creating a wow factor in that design, then again are the products out there for us as designers to create that wow factor...

while we as designers are constantly seeking solutions, design is constantly evolving, as is accessible design. i for one would like to see a big push in this area and feel that the wow factor is certainly accesible in this area of design...

2 comments:

miss mary said...

my friend would love to read this as a person with a disability she has to check out every where before she goes out to
a) pub
b) hotel

one story she told me was when she ran a place to see was it for wheelchair users the reply was yes oh but the toilets are on the second floor
so hopefully you can now improve things

Joanna said...

I have to say the USA is ahead of Ireland on this one. If a person was disabled and there wasn't a disabled toilet for them to use in any building they could take legal action. Americans with Disability Act. ADA! Guidelines
you legally have to follow.

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