Archinect - News

The Hunters Point Library case highlights the ADA's failures to prevent inequality by design

2023-07-24T11:35:00-04:00

More than 30 years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, mandating reasonable accommodations and accessibility features for people with disabilities. Yet to this day, ADA noncompliant sidewalks, crosswalks, and public transportation stops permeate U.S. cities from coast to coast.

The plaintiff in the Hunters Point Library suit against Steven Holl — disability advocate Tanya Jackson — is another high-profile case highlighting the effects of racial health inequality in design and the failures of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for Black disabled citizens, 37% of whom are experiencing poverty.

Some critics have begun apologizing for hyping certain flawed aspects of its design. Recently, the LA Times’ Carolina Miranda diagnosed it as “a structure in which architectural gymnastics have elbowed out basic function” after her own timely house call.

Skanska, AECOM, and SOM announce the completion of Penn Station's Long Island Rail Road concourse renovation

2023-07-10T17:47:00-04:00

Skanska, AECOM, and SOM have announced the completion of Penn Station’s $414 million Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) concourse renovation. The project, which began in January 2021, set out to modernize and widen LIRR’s 33rd Street train hall corridor, all while maintaining the station’s daily operations and train service.

"In order to best accommodate and enhance the commuting experience for the 600,000 passengers that utilize LIRR’s 33rd Street corridor daily, deciphering a path to improving the station’s circulation and traffic flow without disrupting daily train service was paramount,” said executive vice president of Skanska’s East Coast civil operations, Michael Viggiano. “We’re thrilled to be celebrating the completion of this project and to have played a crucial role in reconstructing one of New York City’s most highly trafficked transit hubs.”

The design-build project included the design and construction of the concourse, with a widened corridor, raised ceiling heights, upgrade...

New York City sues Steven Holl Architects over inaccessible Hunters Point Library design

2023-05-19T19:04:00-04:00

New York City is suing the architects behind the Hunters Point Library for tens of millions of dollars over portions of the structure not being accessible to people with handicaps, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. [...] The city’s lawsuit was filed May 17 in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. The defendants are Steven Holl Architect, PC, aka Steven Holl Architects, and the individuals Steven Holl and Christopher McVoy.

The original lawsuit was brought to Federal court in November 2019 by a local disability advocate named Tanya Jackson. The project debuted just two months prior and drew the immediate ire of critics who were quick to point out the flaws in its $41.5 million non-universal design. Steven Holl Architects senior partner McVoy has defended the project as "incredibly successful" since that time and now faces a total of $10 million in potential damages alongside Holl. Another $20 million could be assessed against the firm depending on the lawsuit’s outcome.

Previously on Archinect: Class action lawsuit filed in Hunters Point Library accessibility dispute

According to the complaint: "As designed and built, the Library failed in multiple ways to comply with the design requirements set forth in the requirements contract and Task Order 1. The areas of noncompliance included several primary design elements of the building, as well as ADA standards for bathroom layout, door clearances, and the li...

New York's MTA will officially make 95% of subway stations ADA compliant by 2055

2023-04-11T15:25:00-04:00

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday approved a settlement to a class action lawsuit that locks the MTA into equipping 95% of subway and Staten Island Railway stations with elevators or ramps — with a deadline three decades away. The approval by Judge Edgardo Ramos caps one part of a long-running push by advocates for people with disabilities to improve access to a transit system where merely a quarter of the nearly 500 stations comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

As The City reported, the ruling makes the terms of last June’s landmark settlement official. Judge Ramos told plaintiffs that he knows the push would be a “very difficult thing to achieve.” MTA officials currently plan the upgrades in stages, with 81 stations affected by 2024 as part of the $50 MTA Capital Program; another 85 by 2035; 90 more by 2045; and the final 90 ready by 2055, bringing the total to 346 (or about 95% of the networks total stations).

Darin Johnstone Architects creates ‘ephemeral experience’ in Pasadena auditorium renovation

2023-04-07T11:10:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based Darin Johnstone Architects has offered an inside look at their recently-completed renovation of the Ahmanson Auditorium. Located on the ArtCenter College of Design’s Hillside campus in Pasadena, the 3,300-square-foot auditorium saw upgrades to its lobby, main theater, and projection room.

Image credit: Joshua White

Upon entering the venue, the upgraded lobby deploys simple design elements such as an historic existing feature steel stair and an original Keith Haring mural to “create a threshold” from the wider campus. Elsewhere, the 214-seat auditorium has been upgraded to achieve full ADA accessibility while sound and light components have been used as a catalyst to create a contemporary atmosphere.

Image credit: Joshua White

The side walls of the auditorium are lined with over five thousand color gradient sound-absorbing “dots.” The “dot walls” transition from orange to black as one moves through the auditorium, co...

Chicago will receive $185 million for long-awaited CTA station accessibility upgrades

2022-12-27T13:40:00-05:00

Chicago will receive a total of $185 million in federal funding to make several of its Chicago Transit Authority and Metra stations accessible for disabled riders, officials announced Monday as part of a new program tucked into the bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden last year.

The money is part of the larger $1.75 billion provision set aside for accessibility improvements in various urban transit agencies by the federal infrastructure bill from last year. New York is the only city to receive more. Per the Tribune, a total of 42 of the CTA’s 145 stations are not currently compliant with the ADA’s design standards. Nationwide, the number is thought to be around 900.

“It’s a sorry state,” disabled Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran who asked for twice the amount of funding before the bill was watered down in congress, told the paper. “I don’t take the ‘L’ in Chicago because I never know if a station is going to be fully accessible for my wheelchair or not.”

Chicago Cubs sued by DOJ over alleged ADA violations in recent Wrigley Field renovations

2022-07-19T14:30:00-04:00

The federal government is taking the Chicago Cubs to court over the team's recent renovations at Wrigley Field, claiming the changes to the ballpark don't comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). According to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court by the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, the Cubs "failed to ensure that recent additions and alterations at Wrigley Field are readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities.”

Between 2014 and 2019, Wrigley Field underwent a significant overhaul known as “The 1060 Project,” which included new seats, expanded bleachers, a new outdoor concourse, new concessions, upgraded restrooms, new team clubhouses, and more.

The alleged violations to the ADA Standards for Accessible Design were first recognized by the Department of Justice in November 2019. The lawsuit claims the franchise didn’t provide wheelchair users with adequate sightlines, that are further worsened when other fans stand during games. In the general admission areas, wheelchair seating is mainly grouped in the last row of seating sections. In addition, the new premium clubs and group seating areas do not include wheelchair seating.

The lawsuit also highlights flaws with concession stands, restrooms, and walkways throughout the stadium. The Justice Department is seeking a court order requiring the Cubs to address the deficiencies noted in the lawsuit and to compensate visitors for any injuries suf...

Michael Kimmelman on the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

2020-07-20T13:58:00-04:00

Thirty years on, the A.D.A. has reshaped American architecture and the way designers and the public have come to think about civil rights and the built world. We take for granted the ubiquity of entry ramps, Braille signage, push buttons at front doors, lever handles in lieu of doorknobs, widened public toilets, and warning tiles on street corners and subway platforms. [...] The A.D.A. has baked a more egalitarian aesthetic of forms and spaces into the civic DNA.

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times highlights how public discourse surrounding designing for people with disabilities has changed in the three decades that have passed since the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Highlighting the tensions that exist between terms like "universal" and "inclusive" design, Kimmelman also revisits a recent glowing review he wrote last year of the Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Library in Queens, the design of which was highlighted by members of the community as being rather inaccessible in terms of its design.

Berkeley CED Professor Emeritus Raymond Lifchez donates $2.5 million for Universal Design-focused endowed professorship

2020-05-21T18:57:00-04:00

University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design (CED) Professor Emeritus Raymond Lifchez has donated $2.5 million to the college in order to create a new endowed teaching position focused on universal design.

Previously on Archinect: "Unpacking The Spatial Implications Of Architecture's Accessibility Failures." Image courtesy of Murmurs and Josh Schaedel.

The new Lifchez Professor of Practice in Universal Design position will help bring additional design and pedagogical energies to the topics of accessibility and universal design, two areas that Professor Lifchez has pursued over his 50-year-long career at CED.

According to a news post published by the school, the Professor of Practice in Universal Design will rotate between departments within CED, which include Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and City and Regional Planning.

'Lego Grandma' constructs wheelchair ramps out of Lego

2020-02-24T16:45:00-05:00

Ms. [Rita] Ebel, who has been in a wheelchair herself since a car accident 25 years ago, said the idea was born after a friend of hers, who is also in a wheelchair, said she could not get out of a shop with steps and had to enlist the help of four people to carry her chair down. Ms Ebel then saw a picture in a medical journal for paraplegics, of a woman in an electric wheelchair going over a Lego ramp.

Earning the nickname 'Lego Grandma,' Rita and her husband work together on the ramps, often spending two to three hours a day building them, reports RTE News. While wood or aluminum ramps would provide a proper solution, Rita says that the bright Lego "makes her message stand out and highlights the day-to-day problems faced by people with disabilities." These playful bricks have become a form of advocacy.

"For me it is just about trying to sensitive the world a little bit to barrier-free travel, I mean it could happen to anyone that they suddenly end up in a situation that puts them in a wheelchair, like it did [to] me," Rita expressed, according to RTE News.

A deeper look into #ADAFails and the inaccessibility of common public spaces

2020-02-03T12:31:00-05:00

Ask any disabled person about the gap between the ADA’s aspirations and their hard realities. We are often forced to stop in our tracks and weigh the chances of falling and suffering minor or serious injury against the need to go into a library, store, or post office. But it’s more than that. We believe strongly that we deserve a right to exist in the world. We’re just waiting for the rest of the world to truly believe this, too.

Writing in The Nation, author Elizabeth Guffey reflects on the ongoing accessibility failures that impede the everyday experiences of countless people in the United States despite the fact that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted 30 years ago.

Guffey takes a look into the #ADAFail photo genre that documents common “access fails," or quotidian instances of inaccessible design that making navigating through the country's built environment frustrating, difficult, and often dangerous for people who have disabilities.

One thing you can say about @NCDOT: Their licensed professional engineers spare no expense in addressing the basic needs of people with disabilities along state highways across the Good Roads State. #HoldMyBeer #ADAfail #LawsuitPlease #UncivilEngineering pic.twitter.com/egm6mw6x1p
— Don Kostelec (@KostelecPlan) November 14, 2019

The Vessel will become accessible with an ADA-compliant platform and lift

2019-12-23T13:54:00-05:00

Representatives of the United States Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced today that Related Companies and ERY Vessel LLC have agreed to install a new accessibility platform at the Vessel in Hudson Yards as part of a legal agreement aimed at bringing American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance to the eight-story outdoor sculpture.

The agreement dictates that Related and ERY will design, construct, install, and operate a "one of a kind platform lift mechanism on the upper levels of the Heatherwick Studio-designed Vessel ... to increase the Vessel’s accessibility for individuals with disabilities," according to a United States Justice Department announcement. The platform will ensure that people with disabilities can move around the upper level perimeter of the Vessel in order to enjoy the Vessel's 360-degree views over Hudson Yards, the Hudson River, and New Jersey.

According to the m...

Is providing accessible design a shared responsibility?

2019-12-18T17:00:00-05:00

Nearly thirty years after the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed, accessibility for disabled people both online and in public space remains severely insufficient. New York artist Shannon Finnegan and design historian Aimi Hamraie, who currently resides in Nashville, held a video chat on October 9 to discuss their respective artistic, activist, and historical takes on disability justice.

Aimi Hamraie's 2017 book Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability explores the question of who counts as "everyone" according to architects of the Universal Design movement.

Finnegan's artworks include pieces such as "Museum Benches," benches that are inscribed with: "THIS EXHIBITION HAS ASKED ME TO STAND FOR TOO LONG. SIT IF YOU AGREE." In this article, the pair discuss at length their ideologies around the shared responsibility around access in our society today.

Accessibility failures abound in Los Angeles's public and private realms

2019-10-05T12:00:00-04:00

Yes, messy sidewalks are hard. But so are shops and restaurants with steps at their entrances. So are blocks that lack curb cuts or have ones that are poorly designed. So are broken elevators. So is the fact that in L.A., if you’re a disabled person (which is what Radcliff calls himself rather than a person with a disability), you generally have to spend more on rent, because the properties covered by rent stabilization are older ones less likely to be accessible.

The Los Angeles Times takes a look at how a pervasive lack of universal design across Los Angeles makes daily life nearly impossible for disabled people.

Lovely Hunters Point Library is actually lacking in terms of universal design

2019-10-04T07:00:00-04:00

“I think it looks really beautiful," said Frank Wu, the president of Court Square Civic Association, a group in Long Island City that tries to encourage smart development. [...] “There are a ton of stairs but only a single elevator,” he said, adding that accessibility has long been an issue in Long Island City, which has seen the number of young families with strollers balloon in recent years.

A much-lauded new library in New York City's Long Island City district designed by Steven Holl Architects might have serious shortcomings when it comes to accessibility and universal design.

The library's fiction collections are organized along a set of tiered levels that can only be accessed via staircase. Photo © Steven Holl Architects.

As patrons have flocked to the library, it has been discovered that certain areas are less accessible than others, including the library's fiction aisles, which are set along multiple tiered levels that are only accessible via stairs.

Joe Bachner, a resident who visited the library, told Gothamist, "If you can’t walk, you can’t go through that area."

In order to overcome this situation, Gothamist reports, librarians are available to go up and select books for library patrons, as necessary.

MTA moves to finally address subway station accessibility issues

2019-09-27T09:00:00-04:00

The MTA pledged Monday to fast-track subway access for people with disabilities by making 66 more stations easier to navigate as part of a new $51 billion, five-year spending plan...The promise comes as the MTA faces multiple lawsuits over the shortage of elevators in the subway system

"Making 66 more stations accessible would triple the number that had been tapped for Americans with Disabilities Act upgrades in the 2015-2019 capital plan," THE CITY reports.

The planned upgrades are part of MTA's recently announced $54 billion capital improvement plan.

OLIN Labs hosts educational series on universal design

2019-08-09T13:30:00-04:00

The series served as an introduction to Universal Design, described the social model versus the medical model of Disability, and shared the specific needs and design strategies to accommodate both the Deaf/HoH as well as the Autistic and Neurodivergent communities. This series initiated a conversation reaching across Disabled communities, and demonstrates that while different Disabled communities’ needs may be different, the design solutions are often incredibly similar.

With the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act approaching, discussions that examine where design and accessibility intersect have increased in frequency.

In June 2019, for example, OLIN Labs' hosted a lecture series covering a range of topics relating to the interconnected issues of inclusion and access.

There was the Intro to Disability and the Built Environment, a lecture by Dr. Victor Pineda, founder and president of WorldENABLED, an educational non-profit that promotes the rights and dignities of persons with disabilities. The lecture asked: "what can we do as landscape architects and planners to design more accessible public places, to better include stakeholders with disabilities in the design process, and to understand how public policy can deeply influence Universal Design."

Another lecture, Design for Autism and Neurodivergence: Shaping the Sensory Landscape by People Lab member, Danielle Toronyi, "introduced designers to the Autistic and Neurodivergent c...

There's more to architecture than having vision. How one man's loss is transforming perspectives

2019-01-14T16:58:00-05:00

For many architects, much of one's work depends upon the visual possibilities where space can transform. Often overlooked, many designers forget what it is like to design buildings and structures for the blind or hearing impaired. Universal accessibility and inclusive design methods are being discussed more and more within the architecture community. Educators, advocates and architects like Chris Downey use their experience and skillsets to transform the perspectives of architecture for the visually impaired.

he main lobby at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center in Palo Alto, Calif., one of Downey’s first major projects after he lost his sight. Photograph courtesy of John Boerger Image © ncsu.edu

In a recent 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl, Downey shares with the public how the loss of his sight helped him become more aware of what it mea...

The final frontier: wheelchair accessibility in science fiction

2018-08-01T15:29:00-04:00

Space remains a vast, untamed place, penned in only by the limits of our own imaginations. So why the hell are there so many staircases in space? [...] Once you start realizing how many stairs there are stopping you in real life, it becomes impossible not to notice them existing in the sci-fi you adore. Turns out they’re everywhere [...] our sci-fi imitates a real-world reliance on steps and stairs in our architecture.

With Staircases in Space: Why Are Places in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?, Ace Ratcliff pens an excellent analysis of the pervasive presence of staircases in sci-fi that appear to foreshadow a future where universal accessibility for wheelchair-bound people like herself—and beyond that, the full inclusion in society—remain utterly unachieved.

"Unfortunately, 50 years worth of Federation starship manifestations also means half a century of inaccessibility," writes Ratcliff. "The original USS Enterprise bridge has enough steps you could take the equivalent of an aerobics class just trying to get from the turbolift to the Captain’s chair. The same level of inaccessibility goes for both the USS Voyager and USS Discovery, and if you’re a wheelchair user, you better not try to grab an after-shift bottle of bloodwine at Quark’s Bar unless you plan on dragging yourself up several steps to get there. In fact, the bridge from The Next Generation’s Enterprise is the only one that...

0 to 1 approaches special needs design differently

2015-07-03T18:18:00-04:00

Most planners and architects can speak volumes about accessibility requirements [...]. Tamara Petrovic and Garner Oh, partners of the architecture and design firm 0 to 1, are intimately aware of such needs. To address their son’s difficulty with balance and motor skills, the pair developed a range of products for the home that transform his living environment into a safe and appealing space for all members of the family and resist the institutional aesthetic often seen in special needs products.

“3D Soundscape” Can Guide Blind People Through Cities

2014-11-19T15:19:00-05:00

Enter Cities Unlocked, a project intended to help people with sight loss navigate cities. The brainchild of a blind Microsoft employee, it uses GPS, a 3D audio headset, and Bluetooth beacons, among other technologies. [...] “I’m a blind person, I need to keep my ears open,” she says. The headset uses bone-conducting technology, in which vibrations create a “3D soundscape” around the user.

Designing for Seniors and Soldiers, Toward a "Silver" Architecture

2014-11-11T14:25:00-05:00

In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, geriatrician Louise Aronson advocated for a new type of building, one designed with an aging population in mind, which, she suggests, might be dubbed “silver” architecture. [...] It being Veterans Day, this article got me thinking about architect Michael Graves, who recently designed a pair of houses for returning soldiers that follow through on many of Aronson’s suggested parameters for silver design.

How a Blind Architect Reframes Design

2014-08-08T14:11:00-04:00

Downey needed something tactile to work with, and he found it in a kids' toy. Spread out before him on the table are stacks of embossed plans ... marked up with brightly colored wax sticks. [...] The sticks warm to the touch and bend easily; they can make precise angles, and—crucially for Downey—their tackiness makes them stick to paper. "Once I realized that, I thought, 'Oh, I could use that to draw on top of an embossed drawing.'" Suddenly, he had a way not just to read, but to make.

Previously, the LA Times profiled Downey and his firm: Blind architect sports an upbeat vision

Blind architect sports an upbeat vision

2014-04-30T14:05:00-04:00

Blind architect Chris Downey says that city planners and property owners should view future construction projects through a different set of eyes. [...] Downey, 51, of Piedmont, Calif., lost his eyesight six years ago after undergoing surgery for a non-cancerous brain tumor. Since then, he has maintained his San Francisco architectural practice. "I have a career without sight. But as an architect, I still have vision," he said with a grin. "The creative process is a mental process."

Editor's Picks #282

2012-09-18T11:58:00-04:00

The NYT reported that Pedro E. Guerrero, a former art school dropout , died on Thursday at his home in Florence, Ariz. w. wynne A.I.A. offered up the following "Pedro has a wonderful book about his photographic work, and I am sadden to hear of his death. Mr. Wright called him ‘Peter’, but the story of his life with FLW is very nice and interesting account of the middle career of Mr. Wright."

News

The NYT reported that Pedro E. Guerrero, a former art school dropout who showed up in the dusty Arizona driveway of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939, boldly declared himself a photographer and then spent the next half-century working closely with him, capturing his modernist architecture on film, died on Thursday at his home in Florence, Ariz. w. wynne A.I.A. offered up the following "Pedro has a wonderful book about his photographic work, and I am sadden to hear of his death. Mr. Wright called him ‘Peter’, but the story of his life with FLW is very nice and interesting account of the middle career of Mr. Wright."

Bustler announced that architect Deborah Berke, founder of New York City-based firm Deborah Berke Partners, was selected as the first recipient of UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) inaugural 2012 Berkeley-Rupp Architecture Professorship and Prize. Aaron Willette commented "I had the pleasure of working with Deborah at Ghost 10, and to nobody's surpri...