Universal accessibility at Wits

 In my time at Wits University I have been involved in many rewarding initiatives: one of the more significant has been improving accessibility for members of the Wits community who live with disabilities. This all started several decades ago, when my Dean at the time threw my name out as a possible contributor to making the spaces and facilities more accessible. The University had recently appointed a new director of what was initially called the Disability Unit (now the Disability Rights Unit). Dr Anlia Pretorius has recently retired, but in her years of service she started and entrenched a number of initiatives that range across the entire spectrum of disability in her vision to create a universally welcoming environment.

.As an architect, my involvement has always been focused on physical mobility, but this has included a concern for people with visual impairment. The two are closely linked in their spatial requirements, including smooth surfaces free of obstructions, and ramps rather than stairs.

The first phase of the project to achieve universal accessibility on all of the University's campuses, began at the School of Education, which has its own campus that was previously the Johannesburg College of Education, run by the Provincial Department of Education. One of the staff of the School, confined to a wheelchair, is a great champion of human rights, including accessibility. The first concern was to ensure her mobility as well as any other currently registered students with mobility needs. What began as quite a localised initiative soon spread to the whole of this campus, including ramps, special anti-slip paving and toilet facilities. Some of the buildings were much more challenging than others, with level changes and multiple floor levels not easily served by ramps and with stairs too narrow for a stair-lift.

We began the process with a site visit which included the facilities manager of this campus, with the wheelchair user pointing out where she experienced difficulties and frustration. It is so tempting for a designer to just map out routes and plan for disabled facilities "in the abstract" based on design guidelines, but a very different insight is gained from people who experience the spaces every day. One of the things that is not highlighted in design manuals for universal accessibility is the need to shorten the distances on routes. Often to fit in ramps of a shallow gradient, this is unavoidable, but there were several places outdoors where paving lined the edges of spaces, with no easy route across the grass in a wheelchair. Within buildings, this is obviously also a concern, especially if a student or lecturer has limited time to relocate from one venue to another. There is a tendency for designers to tuck the facilities for people with disability out of the main circulation areas, often because accessibility is something of an afterthought or is a retrofit to an existing building.

In the process of achieving accessibility on the School of Education campus, we all learned many lessons that gave us the confidence to move on to the much larger central campuses. For the site visits on the main campuses we were offered the services of two mobility-impaired students, one of whom was on the Student Representative Council, and the other an architecture student, who could give some unique ideas and insights. One of the biggest challenges on the main campus is that a number of the buildings are of heritage value, requiring very sensitive adaptation, such as the installation of a ramp on a historically important facade.

All new developments on Wits campuses now have a requirement for universal accessibility. This is ideal, as facilities are designed in from the outset, with a logic and clarity that is difficult to achieve when retrofitting an existing building. The exteriors of these new developments are also considered, with easily accessible dedicated parking right up to the building. This initiative is spearheaded by the Disability Rights Unit, supplemented by a very active interest group who meet several times a year. The group comprises students and staff with special needs, as well as representatives from the University facilities management department. An important function of the interest group is to give a range of perspectives, as often universal accessibility requires subtle design approaches and tradeoffs where the facilities managers can get special insight by engaging with such a diverse group.