FIA Journal
A good friend of mine is a physiotherapist. She spends her days assisting people to navigate their new lives after a spinal cord injury, working out how to live within the world around them – including in their own homes – once their ability and independence have changed.
Built for Someone, Not Just Anyone
Hello Reader,
I'm really lucky to get some insight from her into the nuances and struggles her clients face when they're adapting to their new circumstances, and what she sees architects and builders get wrong along the way. It's not usually the big, obvious things. It's the smaller stuff nobody thought to ask or consider until it was already built.
Part M sets out clear, sensible minimums. Door widths, turning circles, reach ranges – they exist for good reason. But I do wonder sometimes whether we treat compliance as the finish line, rather than the starting point. A corridor can meet the minimum width and still feel like a squeeze if there's a radiator in the wrong place. A bathroom can pass every check and still be the room someone dreads using. Meeting the numbers isn't the same as the space actually working.
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I do wonder sometimes whether we treat compliance as the finish line, rather than the starting point...
I think part of this comes from designing for an imagined "average" person, someone who isn't especially tall or short, doesn't use a wheelchair or a walking frame, doesn't have a toddler on one hip some days and a bad hip of their own on others. Almost nobody fits that description permanently. Someone recovering from surgery needs the same clearances as a full-time wheelchair user, just for a few months rather than a lifetime. A parent with a pram needs the same step-free access. An older relative with fading eyesight needs the same clear, well-lit routes through a home. We tend to design around a single fixed version of a person, when most of us will move in and out of these needs at different points in our lives.
There's also a real difference between designing accessibility for someone you know, and designing it for someone you don't. Niwa House, a home in Southwark by Takero Shimazaki Architects, is a lovely example of the first. It was designed for a specific family with a wheelchair user among them, and it won a RIBA National Award and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. Nothing about it reads as "the accessible version" of a house, which matters, because so many adapted homes end up feeling clinical; all requirements and no warmth, as though the person got lost somewhere between the brief and the finished space.
But the harder version of this problem is designing for someone you'll never meet. A speculative development, a one-off new build sold on afterwards, a house that might house three completely different households over its lifetime. You're not designing for a known person's needs there, you're designing for the possibility of needs you can't predict yet, which is a different and much trickier kind of thoughtfulness.
I'd love to see more of both done well, accessible design that doesn't look like a compromise, and adaptable design that quietly makes room for whoever ends up living there.
Have you come across a project that gets either of these right? Hit reply and tell me about it, I'd love to collect a few and share some in a future issue.
What I've Been Working On
The part of this that tied in properly was reviewing Valanne's second post in our Designing for Disability series, the one looking at accessible layouts and Part M guidance, which is below in the round-up. It was a nice bit of timing, reading her draft against everything I'd been mulling over for this issue.
I also came across a piece in AJ about a new retirement village that's just won planning approval, and it's stuck with me since. Particularly the question of how we design well for people much later in life, not just those recovering from an injury or living with a disability now. It looks like a great scheme, I’m excited to see it develop.
WHAT'S NEW AT FIRST IN ARCHITECTURE
In Case You Missed It
A few things we've published since the last email, worth a look if any of them catch your eye.
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Flat Roof Details Guide
A fully updated look at flat roof construction, build-ups and detailing considerations.
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Architecture and the Environment: Water
Part of our ongoing series on construction and environmental impact, this one focused on water.
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Accessible Home Layouts: Design Tips and Part M Guidance
The second in our Designing for Disability series, looking at practical layout considerations and Part M compliance.
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A Quiet Reminder
A home isn't finished the day someone moves in. It goes on being lived in, by that person and maybe several others, through changes none of us can fully plan for.
Designing with that in mind isn't really about disability or age as separate categories. It's about designing for the person you might become, not just the person you are right now.
Thank you for being here and taking the time to read, we really appreciate your support. Wishing you a great start to the month ahead.
All the best,
Emma
First In Architecture
