Designing for Universal Access

Users living with physical disabilities, arising from disease (such as polio), accidents, and simply old age, get the shortest end of the stick in urban slum sanitation.

We met disabled users in many slums while conducting our research and realized that designing for this small group is essential. Otherwise the project would fail to live up to its name and its associated goal of providing dignity to all through better sanitation access.

We started allocating space for a universal access stall early on, but only had a very vague idea of what the actual design would be until we worked towards our first design milestone, ‘Sketch Design 1‘. An important caveat to point out is that we focused solely on designing for mobility impairments.

We initially allocated a 5ftx8ft space based on international standards for wheelchair access as outlined in the architectural ready-reckoner: ‘Time Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Planning‘. Along with the basic dimensions and placement of facilities, we tested the designs at 1:1 scale using a wheelchair, gaining some proficiency in its use (and a much-needed upper body workout) along the way.

Shifting out of ‘Sketch Design 1’, we started getting into the details. The testing and design of toilets and bathing stalls for abled users was done first, followed by the ‘Universal Access’ toilet and bathing stall.

We quickly realized that the latter wasn’t as straightforward as the former. This is mainly because none of our baseline research, neither during the ‘Potty Project‘ nor in the initial field visits, focused on disabled users.

Given tight time constraints, we decided to meet with experts working in the area of accessibility for the disabled to solicit their input. Our search led us to Ms. Shivani Gupta, author of several books on accessibility and consultant for the organization AccessAbility in Delhi. This firm advocates for better disabled access and works to affect policy while also consulting service industry companies and builders to design spaces accessible to all.

Our meeting with Shivani was short but fruitful. The key takeaway was to think about our audience very differently as they are unlike the users she works to provide solutions for. She went on to educate us about the phrase ‘Universal Access’, saying it is a misnomer as it is very difficult to design one solution that accommodates different kinds of disabilities.

She then directed us to Prof. Abir Mullick, who has worked extensively in design and architecture, and has conducted in-depth studies with the same audience we’re designing for.

As part of his research as a Fulbright scholar, he spent time at NID, Ahmedabad developing a new set of sanitation facility design regulations for the urban poor with physical disabilities.

He shared with us his seminal paper on the subject, which helped form the basis of the prototype we designed. The philosophy at the core of his work is that, in the case of the urban poor, we should not design for wheelchairs as their proliferation is negligible.

His paper builds off of this idea and lays out design guidelines for users who crawl, use tricycles, crutches, and sticks as mobility aids. They define in great detail the positions of grab-bars and taps relative to the toilet seat. An interesting side project of his is a modified Indian-style WC that helps disabled users defecate comfortably.

Prof. Abir was quite vocal about his stance: design for users relying on mobility aids and disregard wheelchairs. This left the team divided, but the eventual decision to forge ahead with designing a truly universal access stall was made. Our feeling was that we needed to explore all options, including design for wheelchair users.

We were successful in creating a design that required minimal movement of the wheelchair within the booth as illustrated above. The main problem we faced was wheelchair users requiring an elevated toilet seat whereas users of other mobility aids and crawlers prefer a lower seat, as per Prof Abir’s research.

We tested ideal WC positioning with research participants at the Gurgaon studio’s “Potty Lab” using two boxes whose height we adjusted with wooden slats.

The other important features we tested included:

1. User storage preferences. To understand what kind of storage they would need (hooks or shelves) and where exactly it would be most useful, we had participants use a stick-on hook and piece of cardboard and indicate where they wanted them located.
2. Locking mechanisms for the door. We needed to understand what were the ideal heights for handles and locks/latches while considering drastically varying user heights.
3. Bathing area modifications. After providing a raised seat for bathing and floor-level seating, we needed to understand how participants would actually use the facilities and what corresponding modifications needed to be made.
4. Grab rail positions. Based on Prof. Abir’s regulations, we liberally placed grab-rails in the stall’s main areas and sought feedback from users as to positioning and size.

Additional “Potty Lab” testing was conducted, but more on that later…