Accessibility Sketch Journal

Exiting Carpenter Hall.

Working on the idea of accessibility in our built environment has been an eye opening experience. I have had some understanding of people with sensory disability in the past when I took courses on American Sign Language and would go to the meet ups and gatherings, where Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and even Blind people would come together to hangout. I tried to keep up and felt like I could never really understand and grasp the full understanding of their situation in the environment that they lived in. I just felt like I was an outsider looking in, which resonated again with the project that I participated in.

Daggy Faculty Break Room

In a group of two we were given regular everyday tasks of going from one location to another, but this time in a wheelchair. I started off by using the elevator and heading to the bathroom on the second floor, this is when I first met a student that is a wheelchair user. I asked him if he had any tips and he mentioned that the wheel chair we were assigned with actually was meant to be pushed rather than to personally operate. I knew from there it wouldn't be easy. As I entered the bathroom I recognized the inability to fully operate both door and wheel chair, I had a real tough time maneuvering within the space and getting in and out of such a space.

The next task was to head to another building relatively close requiring exiting and wheeling myself through a more uneven and rough surface. I didn't expect the change in terrain to be so drastic but it really shook me up to see the difficulty I was having. The doors were heavy and narrow, the carpets where like quick sand, and the halls were hard to maneuver around.

I really can't imaging the difficulty some may have when going to new places, having to re evaluate every move, and hoping that the accessibility will make it possible for them to live theirs lives. As a design student I truly hope to subconsciously make smart and informative decisions. The cost and innovations of these design solutions should not be a second hand thought, as a human race we should think with understanding an acceptance that not everyone is "average" and that there is more to the design world than what may be visually pleasing to some, but rather to make all things pleasing to all. If we allow ourself to limit the accessibility to some rather than others we will only continue to drive a divide between ourselves and limit our possibilities as a human race.