Accessibility Barriers - Why Removing Them is Everyone's Responsibility
Accessible washroom based on former Alberta Building Code requirements.
As design professionals, we are responsible to always strive to improve the environments we create – whether new or renovated. We especially need to think about the people who will experience these places and either thank or curse the project designers and contractors. The spaces we develop can either create barriers or provide accessibility.
Most people I have worked with in the past 20+ years, have seen that my mobility changes throughout the day from a lurching gait to a smooth walk and many things in between. Sometimes, I might even make use of my cane or rollator if I am having a particularly rough day/week. Over the years, my little family has been faced with numerous medical conditions that time-and-again changed how we lived our lives but always, we had each other – my husband, our son, and me.
I have heard stories from one of my colleagues about when he was in hospital with his spinal cord injury. I was horrified to learn that some young people have been left behind by family who didn’t know how to cope with what the new normal would be. I could not imagine that someone could walk away from a loved one because watching and helping them would be hard and painful. These experiences, and the relationships I have built with colleagues, have informed my design career and the attention I place on creating barrier-free, accessible environments.
I had just submitted an article about building accessible bathrooms the day before I saw my aunt’s Facebook post mentioning a life-altering mountain bike accident my cousin’s oldest son had recently that has left him with paralysis from the chest down.
I know from personal experience how hard it is to find time to pause. When you are in the thick of coping with a medical diagnosis, taking time for yourself and each other doesn’t always make it to the top of the priorities. All you can manage is to provide care for your loved ones, sometimes by travelling back and forth to the hospital, and then, you try to fit in some work. All of this, and numerous other things from your normal schedule keep piling on top of each other, and somehow you are also supposed to think about the future and a new normal.
Since my cousin’s son is in rehab, I thought I would share some resources with him and his family. I sent a few reference books on accessibility and how spaces can help or hinder occupants. Some of those books have already helped answer many questions about how to modify their new home to meet the needs of their entire family.
One of the AWESOME ladies who wrote those reference books is Julie Sawchuk from Sawchuk Accessible Solutions Inc. Last month, Julie celebrated her six-year anniversary of “being alive”. In her first book, she wrote, “I had the privilege of the use of my legs for the first 42 years of my life. What happened next left me using a wheelchair from that point on. Now, I get it. I understand why access allows for freedom, personal energy conservation and inclusion.” She put together a retrospective of what she does when she is not “at work”. Take a look and you will believe that anything is possible.
For all my design and construction industry colleagues, how are you making spaces more accessible?
Not sure why or how to go about making spaces accessible, beyond what you have read in the building code? Be sure to check out an upcoming edition (stay tuned for release date) of Construction Canada, the official magazine of Construction Specifications Canada (CSC), online or coming to your mailbox, for a variety of resources on accessible design to aid each of us in our responsibility to improve the environments we create.
With your efforts, not only will I be able to stop finding such poor examples of spaces that I feel compelled to photograph them, but people will be able to safely use the spaces they visit.
