Room for One

Often I find I'm put in a position of having to swap good accessibility for the privilege of staying with the person I arrived with.
An accessible bed (photo courtesy of Vitalise)

For example, recently I encountered a hotel manager who seemed most put out that my wife and I didn't want to stay in their newly installed accessible room. Obviously a lot of money had been spent improving the hotel's facilities, and there was nothing wrong with the room that she insisted on showing us, it's just that we hadn't envisaged celebrating our wedding anniversary in a hotel room with two single beds. We'd naively thought that, once married, our days of pushing beds together like two naughty teenagers would be well and truly over. We chose one of their regular double rooms instead. I think most people, given the choice between a night of unbridled passion and an accessible en suite bathroom, would choose the former over the latter.

Now that our family has grown, we're finding more and more that we don't fit with your average architect's view of what general accessibility means. Having noticed that our son Tom's attention span has grown over the past few months, we decided to take him to the cinema for the first time last weekend.

Modern cinemas sensibly put wheelchair spaces at either ends of the front or back row so everyone can sit together. But to my surprise, in this cinema, the only space for wheelchair users was at the very back, where there were no handy accompanying seats for my wife and child. If I'd gone to sit in this segregated area, it would have defeated my whole reason for being there, as I wouldn't have seen my son's reaction to the new experience of watching a film on the big screen.

I was forced to abandon my wheelchair at the back and unsteadily walk to some vacant seats halfway down the aisle. I realised with a sinking feeling as I sat down that I was probably stuck there for the duration.

Alas it turned out Tom was far more excited about sitting in a room full of kids his own age, and eating sweets, than watching the film. We were unable to adequately explain the golden rules of the cinema: the ones about sitting quietly and not disturbing anyone. In fact, after about twenty minutes, he was so unimpressed that he rather cutely asked if we could go and get one of his DVDs from home for everyone to watch instead.

Eventually my wife had to take Tom outside as he just wouldn't sit still, leaving me in something of a quandary. I really didn't want to sit through the rest of the kids' film but if I did leave then I'd be disturbing everyone as I'd need to hold on to the backs of each and every seat on my way to where I'd deserted my wheelchair at the back.

In the end, I chose the coward's option and sat still for another hour, bored out of my skull, until the film had finished and I could finally move.

So the assumptions that non-disabled architects and designers make, can have a negative impact on all aspects of life, from wholesome family days out to dirty weekends. Indeed I'm always struck by how little time seems to be devoted to access issues in architecture degrees, not to mention the general lack of disabled architects. And to think, just a little bit of consideration at the outset could make a whole world of difference.