Transcript

Ruth Wright: It is now my distinct pleasure to introduce Jenny Blome.

Jenny has over a decade of experience in project management and as a technology design expert working with innovative companies, such as Apple. Her qualifications include a BSc from the LEEDs School of Business, University of Colorado, and a Certification in Universal Design from University of Buffalo.

She led a team effort to create the first rating survey to support the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification program.

And Jenny is inspired by the vision set forth by the team in which inclusively designed environments make good business sense, promotes equality and makes life easier and safer for everyone. So welcome, Jenny. Over to you.

Jenny Blome: Thank you, Ruth. Hello to everyone. Today I’ll be talking about best practices in universal design in the built environment.

I hope you find this information useful, whether it’s to assist in creating a better workplace for employees in your organization, to impact guidelines and policy, to influence the process of design in a new construction project, or simply making more aware of how best practices in design can make all our lives safer, more convenient, and socially integrated.

Why Universal Design?

When we refer to Universal Design, it can be thought of as the best practice version of accessibility. Accessibility ensures that everyone can access and use the built environment. Universal Design places human diversity at the heart of the design process rather than as an accommodation for some people. This way, buildings and environments can be designed to meet the needs of all users, regardless of their age, or size, or those who have any particular physical, sensory, mental health, or intellectual ability or disability.

The goal is to have design so that people can access, use, and understand the environment to the greatest extent, and in the most independent and natural manner possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized solutions.

We will be looking at how we can make this possible by considering access routes, levels, gradients, and a site layout. Locating parking lots and access routes to promote safety and convenience, ensuring that pedestrian environments are logical and clear to understand.

Today, there are more than 3.8 million Canadians with some form of a disability. And the numbers are growing.

In Canada, and all around the world, people with disabilities face social, attitudinal and physical barriers. Whether disability is caused by birth, an accident or injury, an illness, or the natural effects of aging, anyone can be affected at any time.

One in seven Canadian adults currently identify as having a disability affecting their mobility, vision, or hearing. This number is projected to increase to one in five by 2036. This is due in part to our aging Boomer population.

With this demographic shift, we must prepare for an older workforce by developing strategies for improving the built environment. This can include a variety of seating options for employees. Better lighting, and specifically task lighting, assisted listening devices, space for mobility aides, more supports in washrooms, and quiet rooms for resting and naps. The good news is, it’s not difficult to do. There are well-proven techniques in Universal Design to follow. And by doing so, it creates significant opportunities, such as keeping skilled workers who are aging in the workforce longer, thus saving on costs of retraining new workers. Also there’s a huge, untapped pool of people with disabilities who are well-educated and dedicated workers who can be brought into the workforce. Universal Design brings us meaningful access. It enables people with disabilities to participate equally in social and economic life and benefits us all by helping to create healthy and socially sustainable communities.

When designers, architects, developers and builders take the lead and consider the full life span of people, whether it is families of children, seniors, people with disabilities, or a temporary illness or injury, it becomes clear that the benefit of universally-designed environments is widely shared.

I’d like to ask everyone listening to think about who in their lives might have a disability. In my case, my 85-year-old mother would never admit she has a disability. But when we approach a set of steps leading down into a courtyard or garden, for example, she needs to hold my arm to steady her. But if there’s a handrail, she can independently navigate down the stairs and along the pathway on her own. People with diverse abilities should be able to use buildings and places comfortably, and safely, as far as possible without special assistance. People should be able to find their way easily and understand how to use building facilities.

Designing for the broadest range of users from the beginning can result in buildings and places that can be used and enjoyed by everyone. This approach eliminates or reduces the need for expensive changes or retrofit to meet the needs of a particular group at a later stage.

When you’re approaching the audit process, it is helpful to divide the built environment into key areas for consideration. For example, I have divided it into eight areas to guide our webinar today.

We will be looking at vehicular access, parking, passenger zones and transit stops. The external approach or entrance, which would include pathways, ramps, stairs, and the main entrance. Circulation. How you move around a floor on a building, as well as vertically from floor to floor. Interior services and environment most often depend on what is the occupancy or purpose of the building. And many of them are common, and we’ll cover some of the most common types of services in the environment. Sanitary facilities. Today we’ll be discussing washrooms and showers. Signage, wayfinding and communications.

There’s significant opportunities to improve the functioning and use of a built environment based on this—these features in this area. Emergency systems. We’ll be covering emergency exits and [indiscernible 6:57], fire alarm systems, and building evacuation. This is often not considered on the side of accessibility in Universal Design. It’s a very important area. And again, it’s just not often covered or given a special consideration from the side of the how to get people with disabilities, or have a lack of mobility, out of a building safely. And then finally, we will be looking at additional uses of spaces. Again, this will somewhat depend on the occupancy, and there are many, many additional uses of the space to cover. But we have selected two for the purposes of this webinar.

And those will be workstations, work spaces, and also public assembly.

So, first, we’re going to start off with vehicular access. How people get to a location is important to consider when evaluating the accessibility of a building and site. Public facilities that provide adequate parking, passenger zones and nearby transit stops can make locations more usable, safe, and attractive.

In some cases, it makes a difference of whether certain people are able to work at a location, participate in sporting and cultural events, enjoy shopping, restaurants, and other activities. Parking facilities should be accessible, easy to use, and provide sufficient parking spaces within a well-designed environment to meet the needs of all people expected to use them. Access routes, levels, gradients, site layouts, should be considered very early on in the design stage.

We need to look at the number of designated spaces. It should be driven by the expected occupancy type. For example, if a facility ran adaptable sports programs and senior’s programs, which we find at many of the community centers, you would expect more accessible places to be required. Also the spaces should be provided near the doors or entries where those programs are offered.

Maybe a company leasing space in an office complex has a high percentage of employees with disabilities or perhaps there is a health clinic as a tenant in the building. All of these should be considered.

Dimensions of the designated spaces. As you can see in the diagram on the slide, there is a space for a vehicle and then an access aisle where a person can transfer to a wheelchair. You can also see that there’s a curb ramp that leads directly to the pedestrian pathway. This is very important to have all of these components to make the accessible design work.

Now, if you look at the photo below it, you can see that there’s a nicely designated pathway with a curb ramp and marked pedestrian crosswalk. The only problem is, there isn’t a curb ramp from the parking spot to access that pathway. So a person using a mobility device must go out into traffic to reach the pedestrian crosswalk.

And I’ve seen this exact scenario at a community center parking lot, where they’ve taken the time to design that nice, safe pedestrian pathway

that’s isolated from the parking lot traffic, but there’s no way to reach it from the accessible parking space.So if you look at the diagram above, it’s very important that the access aisle actually accesses the safe pedestrian pathway.

It’s important that a surface is level, stable, firm, and slip resistant. This seems obvious, and it’s very important. But in an effort to accomplish other goals, sometimes it can be missed. I was visiting a very popular tourist attraction set in a park that was a bit hilly. I was surprised that in the accessible parking spot was located on a slope leading up to the facility. However, the main public parking was in a very level area just a block beyond. I asked the operator about the situation and was told that it was at that location because it was closer to the entrance—which is important—and it could share the curb ramp with the passenger drop-off zone in front of the facility. However, this created many problems.

Firstly, it’s dangerous to try to transfer from a vehicle to a wheelchair on a slope, and very much so if you’re trying to do it independently, which is the case of many people with disabilities. The same will hold for an older adult who’s using a mobility aid. But, further, the pay station was on the other side of the street closer to the main parking lot. The visitor in the wheelchair would need to cross the busy road with no pedestrian crosswalk to reach the pay station, come back to the curb ramp.

Additionally, if a family was taking two cars to bring a large group to the attraction, the two vehicles would be separated. One vehicle would go to the accessible parking spot, and the other would go to the main parking lot at the road. This would reduce social integration that we’re always looking for with Universal Design.

So in general, the features that we’re looking for when we do an audit in a parking facility is that we want to make sure that there’s height clearance, if there’s some kind of covering, which we’re always encourage shelter.

Or if it’s in an underground parking lot, we want to make sure that there’s clear signage, not just vertical signage in front of the parking spot, but when you approach a big parking lot, directions to where the accessible spots are located. We want to make sure that there’s safe and direct access to the pedestrian pathways, which we’ve already discussed. Clearly marked pedestrian path—pedestrian routes and crossings, and we want to make sure it’s well illuminated.

Also that the ticket dispensers or paying machines are convenient and accessible, and we just discussed how they were on the other side of the road and not near the spaces. And if the ticket dispensers can include intercom and visual displays, you know, that’s very helpful as well.
Sometimes, one solution will not suit everyone, and a range of options are needed to be provided.

So, for example, a parking ticket machine could offer slots at different heights to facilitate the use at either standing height or sitting height or for people by small stature.

We could talk about emergency assistance, which is very helpful. If your car doesn’t start, or there’s some other issue that happens in a parking lot. However, the station needs to be accessible for everyone. I noticed that a parking lot that I frequent, that they spent the investment, and they’ve taken the time to have emergency stations and they’re very, very nice, and have lighting around them. Easy to use. But they’ve put them up on a curb in a grassy area, so there’s no way they could be accessed with anyone who used a mobility device or any type of a wheelchair. So they’ve made that investment, but it’s not able to be used by a percentage of the population.

So it’s really important that all the way up, could be an accessible emergency call, very easy to use, but it has to be accessible for everyone.
Some innovations and best practices around parking.

To be a parking app that would help guide people to available accessible parking spaces and that would save time and reduce confusion and stress. In larger parking facilities, color and prominent signage with location identifiers, such as letters or animals can be used to help people more easily remember parking locations. And that’s put into place in many locations today.

Including proximate parking for older people, parents with young children, or for deliveries. And this helps prevent random parking and reduces congestion. A shuttle service that is wheelchair-lift equipped can assist people to get to an event, venue or attraction when parking is a long distance away. We can provide short-term parking spaces for 10 or 15 minutes near entrances to prevent double parking and related congestion.

Now, we’ll move on to passenger zone.

The surface should be level, stable, firm, and slip resistant, as we’ve discussed. We’re going to look at the access-file dimensions in design. And the curb ramp should be, if there is a level change—and we already discussed that when I spoke about the attraction that I had gone to. And what was interesting about the curb ramp was it was down the slope, so even though that passenger-drop-off zone was in a flat area, it required somebody going down the hill to use the curb ramp and back up the hill. So these are all important things when we’re looking at design considerations.

And all the other things that are very applicable to parking also are useful, like seating should be available if somebody needs to wait. Shelter. Shelter from the weather. Tactile indicators that should be well illuminated, and, again, located near the principal entrance. We’re not going to talk a lot about the transit—the public transit stop. But I will say that it’s very important that these routes are in place for safe, practical linkage to the facilities. And although they are typically controlled by a municipality, it’s very important that the businesses, and that the customers voice their opinions, as far as making them have the right capabilities in the right locations. So, again, they need to have—be safe and have direct access to pedestrian pathways. They need to have good lighting. There needs to be seating available, and there needs to be good signage.

Now we’ll move on to exterior approach and the entrance. All users, whether they are people with disabilities or not, count on these routes to approach an entrance or a building. Sometimes instead of a ramp, it is preferable for an entrance to have a sweeping, gentle slope that naturally flows into an inclusive, non-segregating, non-labeling walkway, or pathway, that is the main pathway for everyone. And we also want to think about the surfaces, of course. The pathway surfaces should have a minimum cross slope and be slip resistant. Any pathway will turn into a slope, be we believe, when it hits a maximum of 1 and 20, and we don’t believe that ramp should be any more significant than that. We want to make sure that we eliminate tripping hazards, landscaping materials. We want to make sure that there are regular rest areas. And this is something that we’re speaking about more and more, is how far apart there’s going to be a rest area for people who have limited mobility or agility or strength. And this will make the difference between somebody having confidence to get out if they know there’s places they can rest or not.

Also, open, well-lit pathways. We want to make sure that there’s direct access from all access points to all facilities. So you don’t have to go to one location to take one path that will lead to the one building that you want to go to.

It will allow people to make their own decisions. All pathways should be accessible, unless there are alternative pathways that begin and end at the same location. We want to separate pedestrian, vehicular, bicycle and skating pathways with clearly marked boundaries for safety.
We want to make sure that pathways are located near the principal entrance. And that if there are any height clearances you’re following along that those are met. We want to make sure that they’re also well illuminated.

And as we move on, we’ll discuss briefly about ramps.

We want to make sure that the slope is no more than 1 and 20. We want to make sure that there are handrails, that there’s level landing, that the surface is firm, stable, and slip resistant, that there is a clear width, that is convenient, and well illuminated. And as we get to the section of the webinar where we talk about internal ramps, we’ll talk a little bit more about the specifics.

There also may be stairs. And from the perspective of people with disabilities, exterior stairs need to be treated as the same as internal installations, where we have high contrast, nonslip nosing, tactile warning slips, drainage, lighting, and conformed handrails.

You may notice from the photo here, that there’s the option of taking a sloped walkway and then ramp into the building and then the option to take the stairs. However, the handrails there don’t terminate back. They actually stick out, and that’s very dangerous. So in some cases you may be partway there with the proper design, but we need to finish it completely up and provide all the right specifications for, again, safety convenience.

And now we’ll move on to the entrance.

Every building entrance should be easy to locate and clearly distinguishable from the rest of the building. The position at the entrance may be highlighted with architectural features, such as a canopy or a door recess. A change in surface texture of the pavement may also help signal a location of an entrance, particularly for people with visual difficulties. There can be sensory clues, such as a small water fountain or fragrant plants. Artificial lighting can highlight the entrance of a building to make it more obvious at night for everyone.

In new buildings, all entrances, whether they are principal entrances or other entrance, such as a staff entrance, should be universal designed. It is not acceptable that people with different abilities, such as people of different age, size or disabilities, should be required to use a secondary or alternative entrance.

So in general, when we do an audit, we want to look at the list of making sure that there’s a clear width to enter, that there’s a level threshold. We prefer an automatic sliding or a power-operated hinge door. At this time, sliding doors, or hinge doors, are about the same price. And automatic sliding doors, again, are much preferred. Sufficient opening time. We want to make sure they’re well illuminated. We want to make sure that there’s clear space on the interior and exterior sides of the doors. We want to make sure that the controls are convenient, if they are manually activated.

We want to make sure that the automatic door controls are clearly visible with clear signage. Sometimes you’re not sure where the button is located. We want to make sure that if the door is outwardly opening, that it’s protected with a door resource or a guardrail, so somebody doesn’t walk into it. We also want to make sure that there’s a break-out, or a fail-safe system, on automatic doors.

And, again, I think with the interest, we talked a bit about at the beginning of this section about making sure it’s prominent. I’m sure we’ve all ran into the case where we’re meeting somebody, or we’re entering a building for a meeting, and we’re looking around at it, and we’re not sure where the entrance is located. So just from a convenience standpoint, but also people with disabilities, where it takes more effort to get somewhere, to expect to move around different locations just to find where that entrance is. It’s very important to have a very prominent entrance.

And the next section is a bit of innovation. It’s kind of a new area. You wouldn’t expect to see it in very many places today, but it’s something that’s more aspirational that we’re working towards, and that’s a dog-relief area, could be called an animal-support relief area.

But this is the fact that in addition to people traveling with their dogs, the use of assistant dogs is steadily increasing across Canada. Guide Dogs, Service Dogs, Hearing Dogs, and Seizure Dogs are becoming more commonplace every day. Clearly, whether we provide an appropriate location or not, the dogs are going to need to go. There’s controlling the situation by incorporating the relief station into the landscaping plans only makes sense. So a dog-relief area should include an area approximately 3.5 meters square or larger. It should have a grass, or gravel, sand-covered surface. Some service animals are only trained to go on grass or gravel or sand. A universally accessible garbage can. A scooper bag dispenser for all users. And an accessible pathway connecting the relief area to the main sidewalk or route area. We should have signage to identify it. You might have a privacy screen. There could be a bench seating with clear transfer space on one side to accommodate a wheeled-mobility device. We’re going to look for good, general illumination, directional signage. You would want some running water with a hose or sprayer. Affixed trowel for water dish, and a covered relief area so it’s possible to protect from weather. Ideally, in a very aspirational way, there would be a support staff to assist as required.

The photo at the bottom, with the dog in it, is actually at Vancouver International Airport, because they’ve recently constructed and opened a pet-relief area in the U.S. Departure Terminal, and it’s making traveling with a companion all more convenient and comfortable. It’s totally accessible. It’s including a touchless entry, lower counters, and easy to maneuver interior. So it just makes it a lot easier for people who are traveling with dogs, and they don’t have to go to the outside area.

Now we’re going to talk a bit about circulation. And, of course, doors and doorways are important for us to get through, and we just talked a bit about the entrance, and many of the same features or considerations hold up for internal doors.

When doing an audit, here are the kind of features that we’re going to look for in doors. We’re going to look for automatic sliding or power-operated hinge doors, which we mentioned. And a clear width. A level threshold. Even a small lift on a threshold can cause problems when somebody needs to bump over it. Even with on external doors when you have low thresholds, there’s always a way to get proper drainage, and internal you don’t even have that issue. A minimum force required to open the doors.

On internal doors, many times we’ll say this is very heavy, but we can actually adjust the force on that. That’s fairly straightforward, and we can talk to the operation’s manager to have that done. We want to make sure that the door handles are lever style or equivalent features, but this is very standard in Canada right now. But we just want to make sure that the handles, the locks, the latches are operable with one hand and without tight pinching or tight grasping or twisting at the wrist.

We want to make sure that there’s sufficient opening time on a power door. If there’s any kind of a turnstile, which these are, again, being phased out. It’s not so accessible. We want to make sure that there’s an accessible gate next to it. What we find now is that there’s some sort of a card access that the gate will fully open itself, and there’s really no need for a turnstile anymore. We want to make sure that there’s clear space inside and outside the door. And we want to make sure if there are manual controls that they’re conveniently located. What we don’t want to do is have it on the opposite side of the door, so you activate it, and then the door is opening, and you have to move around the door and into the entry. So you need to have them on the latch side.

We want to make sure that a door that you want to encourage people to use is visually contrasted with the adjacent wall, so it pops out for people who are partially sighted. It just makes it easier for everyone. And, again, on internal doors, like external entrance, we want to make sure that the break out, or fail-safe systems on the doors, are in place for emergency access routes. We also want to make sure that any enclosed space is equipped with a lock released from the outside. So that if anyone gets trapped in a room, maybe there’s a medical emergency, there’s a way to get them out. And we don’t have to wait for the one person who has the key that may not be on the facility at the time.

We want to include kick plates on the door, it’s just really protection for the door if the wheelchair needs to bump it. We want to make sure that any outward opening doors are protected by a door recess or a guardrail, which we mentioned on the entrance.

And just a few more things. Accessible doors not used for passage, like a closet door, still needs to be wide enough to maneuver, for all people to be able to use it. And then we just want to make sure that any hardware’s that are related to the door are at an accessible height.

When we look at hallways, we want to make sure, of course, that there’s a clear width, and that clear width is really going to depend, again, on the occupancy. If it’s a very high usage, and we expect multiple people to be using it continually, then it needs to be wider, and we’re very much aware of how wide that needs to be to accommodate a power chair, and a power-chair user—a power-chair user, and a manual user, or somebody with a vision impairment who’s using a cane, so we just need to take those into account. If for some reason, because the building has already been built, there’s the minimum width. We just need to make sure that there’s periodic areas where an individual could pull aside and pass.

We want to make sure that there’s contrasting colors between the wall and floor. This very much helps people who are partial sighted to navigate. You know, otherwise, you look down a hallway, and it could look like one mass without any definition. And this way, people can see the definition and also kind of follow the color contrast.

We also want to make sure that there’s no glare on the wall or the floor. Floor patterns should be simple, but can implement wayfinding techniques, such as using a color tile to guide people to a specific destination. I think somewhat we’ve seen that a bit, and we’ll talk about it in wayfinding, the use of color. And I know at the Vancouver Airport, they do this to guide people either to the ticket counter or to the gates, they’ll use color tiling. They’ll use tiling versus carpeting to guide people.

Hand rails are incorporated into both sides of a long hallway. You know, again, it’s important to consider the occupancy of the building and decide when this is most important to include, but if you have a long hallway, it’s always good practice.

No obstructions, like any kind of fixed items should ideally—would be put into an alcove, whether you have a water fountain or some other fixed item, but it should always be color contrasted, and if it is impeding in the path of travel, it should be detectable with a cane. Seating is provided at regular intervals. Again, the same thing with the handrails where there’s a long hallway.

And in our opinion, you can never have too much seating. You know sometimes you have to ensure that it’s out of the path of travel, and that’s difficult, but there’s always a need for somebody to take a rest, and then, of course, well illuminated.

Ruth: Jenny?

Jenny: Yes?

Ruth: