Archinect - News

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).

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...

MTA agrees to make 95% of subway stations accessible by 2055

2022-06-24T15:50:00-04:00

New York has lagged for years behind other major American cities in making its subway system accessible to people with disabilities: Just 126 of its 472 stations, or 27 percent, have elevators or ramps that make them fully accessible. But on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it would add elevators and ramps to 95 percent of the subway’s stations by 2055 as part of a settlement agreement in two class-action lawsuits over the issue.

The settlement will see 81 subway and Staten Island Railway stations accessible by 2025. Another 85 stations will be made accessible by 2035, with 90 more by 2045, and an additional 90 by 2055. The subway stations selected for changes include nine that currently are partially accessible, where passengers who cannot use stairs only have access to trains traveling in one direction. The MTA will be required to allocate approximately 15 percent of the subway’s capital budget for the improvements.

Transit officials have pointed to engineering concerns, construction time, and costs as the factors behind the plan’s lengthy timeline. Even when complete, the subway will not be 100 percent accessible. However, despite this, the agreement, which still requires court approval, addresses an issue that has long prevented commuters with disabilities from accessing the city’s transit system.

Michael Graves Design teams up with CVS to create a more stylish and accessible line of home health care products

2022-02-22T13:26:00-05:00

CVS Pharmacy and Michael Graves Design are now teaming up on a direct-to-market line of home health care products that will build on the legacy of inclusive design beget by its namesake in the inspiring last decade of his life and career.

The initial round of products focuses on bathroom safety and mobility aids and includes a foldable cane, travel walker, shower chair, 3-in-1 commode, and raised toilet seats each based around philosophies of the Design for All movement which the architect helped create.

CVS Health Take Along Folding Cane. Image courtesy Michael Graves Design.

In order to get the best possible input and consumer feedback from users of the products and their caregivers, the firm undertook a comprehensive ethnography study along the east coast that provided extremely valuable insights into a too-often overlooked area of home product design.

CVS Health Raised Toilet Seat. Image courtesy Michael Graves Design.

“This product actually gives people the feeling that, hey, so...

MASS Design Group's Jeffrey Mansfield receives $50,000 grant for study into architecture for the deaf

2020-12-02T11:04:00-05:00

This week, Mansfield, a design director for MASS Design Group, was named a Disability Futures Fellow by the Ford Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He’s one of 20 artists around the country to receive the $50,000 grant, a new initiative and the only national, multidisciplinary prize for creators with disabilities.

Born deaf, Mansfield, according to The Boston Globe, "plans to use the award to further his Deaf Space Archive research into how the designs of 19th- and 20th-century schools for the deaf contributed to societal perceptions of deafness as a pathology — and what that did to deaf students. He travels the country, learning stories of deaf education."

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.

The Architecture Beyond Sight program at the Bartlett brings design opportunities to the visually impaired

2019-09-05T12:30:00-04:00

This summer, several architecture institutions provided workshops and summer intensives for prospective students and adults looking to immerse themselves in an architecture and design environment. The Bartlett School of Architecture's Architecture Beyond Sight program provides an excellent opportunity for designers to allow inclusivity to exist at the forefront during the design process.

Initiated by Bartlett's faculty of the Built Environment dean Alan Penn in collaboration with architect and researcher Carlos Mourão Pereira, the program challenges the conventional approach of designing with sight.

Artist Rachel Gadsden with Judit Pusztaszeri. Image courtesy of Proffessor Alan Penn via disordinaryarchtiecture.com

Architecture Beyond Sight is an engaging summer workshop that challenges "architecture's obsession with visual fixation" Dean Penn shares on the Bartlett school site. During week-long workshop participants are presented with an "alternative to architecture's visual bias, b...

From The Vessel to gallery accessibility, the art world continues to reinforce ableism

2019-08-07T16:14:00-04:00

In 2019, inclusive spaces that are comprised of voices from the neurodiverse and disabled community are still extremely rare. Despite the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 29 years ago, neurodiverse and disabled communities continue to face collective discrimination from failures to accommodate in access, transportation, employment, education, and many other arenas. Unfortunately, the art world is no exception.

Emily Sara, a disabled, interdisciplinary artist and designer, penned an open letter calling on the art world for stronger support of the neurodiverse and disabled communities, whose everyday needs are often overlooked in American society. She names a few examples of how the art world inadvertently reinforces ableism, such as the controversial Vessel, the accessibility of several New York galleries, and the lackluster representation of disabled artists in exhibitions.

“Regarding the art world, navigating and addressing these issues will require taking fundamental steps toward inclusion, from implementing practical solutions to increasing awareness among art institutions and community members,” Emily Sara writes in her letter. “I am therefore calling on galleries, curators, museums, institutions of higher education, artists, and other art institutions: welcoming the neurodiverse and disabled is long overdue.”

Bad braille signage on buildings is still an overlooked problem in the U.S., report finds

2019-07-01T14:50:00-04:00

At the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the braille was too oversized to read for the blind. When asked about this, the National Parks Service told CBS News that the braille on the memorial was "part of the artist's design of the memorial," and was "not necessarily intended as accessiblity [sic] elements" for the blind.

A CBS News investigation revealed two year's worth of complaints to the U.S. Justice Department's Disability Rights section about missing or incorrect braille found at numerous public facilities throughout the U.S. The report is but another reminder about how the needs of blind Americans still aren't being prioritized as much as they should be. An eyebrow-raising example from CBS' article is the National Park Service (quoted above) stating that the oversized braille on the FDR Memorial in Washington D.C. was more of a stylistic choice in the artist's design. Yikes.

“There's federal laws including the American Disabilities Act that was passed 30 years ago, there's the Architectural Barriers Act,” CBS News Reporter Steve Dorsey said in a radio interview on WCBS 880. “It's all about compliance and it's all about ensuring that the folks who manage buildings — even old buildings — respect the needs of our fellow Americans, hundreds of thousands of Americans, who do read braille.”

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With no wheelchair ramp, Tony Award winner Ali Stroker couldn't join her cast and crew on stage to celebrate their win

2019-06-12T15:15:00-04:00

After her win, Stroker spoke to reporters about the lack of accessibility on Broadway. She said that most of the theaters’ backstage areas are not generally accessible to performers with disabilities. “I would ask theater owners and producers to really look into how they can begin to make the backstage accessible so that performers with disabilities can get around,” she said, per The New York Times.

Ali Stroker became the first person to use a wheelchair to win a Tony Award during Sunday night's glitzy ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Her historical win — which was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in the acclaimed Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” — is a milestone in bolstering the representation of people with disabilities.

However, there was an obstacle for Stroker during the ceremony that is all too common for people with disabilities in everyday life: No ramp had been built to connect the audience seating area to the main stage. In one instance, she had to wait in the wings on stage in case she won in her individual category. Then when “Oklahoma!” won Best Revival of a Musical, Stroker could not join the rest of the cast and crew on stage to accept the award. While Stroker generally had a celebratory night, that moment was yet another disheartening reminder that basic universal accessibility needs are still easily overlooked.

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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.

Chris Downey speaking to architecture students at the University of Arkansas Image © uark.edu

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...

What buildings can teach us about accessibility and future cities

2018-11-12T19:53:00-05:00

Accessibility looks like different things to different people. When architects design buildings there are parameters that must be met in order to meet standard building codes. With the passing of the Americans with Disability Act, building regulations were placed to ensure that the design process included these "check off items". However, how can individuals with varying disabilities know where spaces are "fit" for them.

McCormick Tribune Campus Center, ITT Image © Simon King

Accessibility mapping has become a method which helps identify areas that provide access to individuals with disabilities. Groups all over the world from Nashville to Paris take part in "map-a-thons" that allow people to come together in a collective effort to understand where access is available in their city. Whether they themselves are disabled, know of people who are, or concerned citizens who want to become more aware of their surrounds for others accessibility mapping allows for the tracking and documenta...

The Flexible Heart of the Home

2018-05-31T12:44:00-04:00

For too long, the issues of gender, disability, and user-centeredness have been relegated to the far margins of architectural history.

Places columnist Barbara Penner uncovers a parallel narrative to the rise of flexible home design — often attributed to a handful of progressive postwar designers — in the history of home economics. She explores the flexible domestic spaces created by designers such as Lillian Moller Gilbreth to accommodate what we now call "non-conforming" bodies, and shows how their work laid the foundations for the Independent Living and universal design movements.

Steve Saling, retired landscape architect with ALS, designs residence he can control by blinking

2016-07-08T13:38:00-04:00

Unwilling to accept a life utterly dependent on caretakers, [Steve] Saling designed a series of systems that let patients with ALS control their environment in the assisted living center with ...blinks and facial twitches. “The notable impact that ALS had on my ability to design is speed,” he said. “I am a lot slower. [But] Because much of my profession had been computerized and I excelled in computer-assisted drafting, I was still able to convey my ideas with a lot of precision.”

Read more about amazing architects who never let their disabilities get in their way:

Working out of the Box: Francis Tsai

Francis Tsai, previously featured on Archinect's Working Out of the Box, passes away

Building Voice: Visually impaired architect, Christopher Downey, lectures in Downtown Miami

The nuanced design of deaf spaces

2016-03-03T19:12:00-05:00

The communication and orientation styles of the deaf or hearing impaired come with their own set of design guidelines, especially regarding shared or educational spaces. Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf/hearing impaired in Washington, DC has been profiled before for its attention to architecting deaf space, and now gets the Vox / Curbed explainer treatment on the particulars of deaf design.

Related on Archinect:

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.

In honor of Veterans Day, respecting and celebrating our veterans through architecture

2014-11-11T18:33:00-05:00

In honor of Veterans Day 2014, Archinect put together a collection of memorials and architectural projects devoted to U.S. veterans.

Architecture for Recovery: IDEO and Michael Graves Design a Home for Disabled Military Veterans: The Wounded Warrior homes aim to personalize and make accessible veterans' living spaces, to help adapt back to life at home.

D.C. Breaks Ground on Housing for Homeless Vets: Nearly half of the complex's mixed-income and affordable units will be reserved for homeless vets, with onsite facilities for case managers and social workers to engage with tenants.

Designing for Seniors and Soldiers, Toward a "Silver" Architecture: Michael Graves' designs for the Wounded Warrior homes align with geriatrician Louise Aronson's desire to create a new architectural style for the elderly.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Turns 25: Maya Lin's design is now in its 32nd year.

Veterans Day also gives us a chance to reflect on how we historicize war and those involved, begging the que...

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

In Detroit, a Groundbreaking School Comes Back as Condos

2014-06-18T13:39:00-04:00

Due to plummeting enrollment and a troubled district, vacant school buildings—heck, just vacant buildings—are none too rare in Detroit. After 19 years of abandonment, the Nellie Leland School, however, is no longer vacant—it, as abandoned urban buildings are want to do, is back in session as condos. [...] Today, the school is known as Leland Lofts, a set of expansive condos in the Lafayette Park neighborhood near downtown Detroit, where a 1,465-square-foot, one-bedroom loft goes for $175K.

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."

Parsons and the Met team up to increase accessibility for disabled

2013-12-13T14:40:00-05:00

As virtual access to art collections expands through online walk-throughs and projects like Google’s Open Gallery, museums have long been experimenting within their own halls with ways to accommodate a wider range of visitors, particularly those with disabilities. Historically, museums have been leaders in the field of accessible institutional design, whether through improvised additions or new technology. In a collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Parsons The New School for Design, students in the School of Art, Media, and Technology have focused on how both physical and online resources can optimize the museum experience for people with disabilities.

Working under the Design and Technology masters program and alongside education specialists at the Met, Parsons’ students spent the last semester designing a host of physical and digital tools to not only make museum resources more accessible, but to serve and benefit the public at large. Their work, including a...

The Architecture of Autism

2013-10-15T12:10:00-04:00

In 2009, a pair of academics, Kim Steele and Sherry Ahrentzen, collaborated on “Advancing Full Spectrum Housing,” a comprehensive design guideline for housing adults with autism. (An expanded book on the topic is scheduled to come out next year.) Perhaps the first development to closely follow their template is Sweetwater Spectrum, a residence for 16 adults whose abilities and disabilities span the full range of autism.