Buildings for everyone!
A resource for designing more inclusive buildings is now available from the New Zealand government.
Listen to the audio version by clicking the play button above.
In January 2019, the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) released a guidance document titled Buildings for everyone: Designing for access and usability.
This information may not seem noteworthy - after all, government documents are released all the time and end up as white noise in the background of life. However, this one is exciting and worth a closer look.
The document was announced jointly by Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni, and Minister for Building and Construction, Jenny Salesa. Having two Ministers team up to introduce Buildings for Everyone gives you an indication of its importance in both sectors.
“Permanent or temporary disability affects one-quarter of all New Zealanders, including seniors. Inaccessible buildings, transport, and services exclude a large proportion of disabled people from employment, housing and a decent standard of living and quality of life. In this day and age that level of exclusion is unacceptable,” says Sepuloni.
Why do we need this when we already have a building code that address accessibility?
Buildings for Everyone focuses first on how people use the built environment, then offers pertinent accessibility and universal design considerations for achieving maximum accessibility. On the other hand, building code compliance documents only provide prescribed access solutions and tend to focus on achieving minimum accessibility.
In New Zealand, compliance documents for accessibility have largely remained static in the years since their debut. In the case of NZS4121:2001, which is the most comprehensive of the acceptable solutions for accessibility, it has not been amended since its introduction in 2001.
In the meantime, international research around evidence-based access design solutions has been ongoing. For example, the use of assistive devices such as mobility scooters has increased - less than 50% of mobility assistive devices can turn in a 1500mm diameter circle, but a currently compliant accessible toilet provides even less space than that. We are also much more knowledgeable about how design can support the needs of people living with conditions such as autism.
Buildings for Everyone is a useful bit of kit to bridge the gap between our aging accessibility acceptable solutions and access solutions based on how people are actually using the built environments and what their needs really are. It helps designers, developers, contractors owners / occupiers, facility / building managers provide a built environment that works better for all of us.
