Responding to the beginning of Adrian's July 12 posting at 12:16....
"Interesting question, Jude, I guess it comes down to... is there such
a thing as Universal Design?
Huh?
The amount of logical or illogical leaping around from one thing to
another, to arrive at this question... not to mention presenting this
rhetorical question as: "..at it's most basic, what it comes down to..."
is astonishing.
1. -- There is nothing in Jude's initial post that indicates that in
the home design in question, there was ever any design intent to try to
do "universal design". She does not use the term "universal" but rather
"accessible", and clearly indicates that in this example, it means
"accesible for one person".
2. -- Even if there was such intent, and it did not acheive design
success (perhaps due to tight cost constraints which she mentioned in a
much later posting).... how on earth woud this one extremely specific
and limited example, indicate that "it ALL (emphasis mine) comes down
to -- is Universal Design even possible?"
That is directly analagous to saying "Here's a pollution belching
factory, so this means that... at it's most basic, it all comes down to
'Is there such a thing as environmental responsibility?"
If you said that exact sentence to a group of environmentalists, what
response would you get?
The statement is profoundly illogical, in 2 or 3 respects.
3. -- The test of "Is there such a thing as Universal Design?"
obviously cannot be -- "Has every designer who wished to do it, in
every situation, done it successfully in regards to every disability on
earth, and for zero extra cost?"
4. -- To discuss "accessible design" compared with "universal design"
(when latter of course, may be only "attempted", not fully acheived)
.... we have to be careful to not mix up the terms.
As far as I know, there is NO building code on earth that requires that
design attempt to be "universal". None. The only codes I know of, are
about a much more kimited definition of "accessible design" {which is
often specified in a very limited way... clearly without any expressesd
requirement of "try to be 'universal'; think of every disability and
every combination fo disabilities..." (some people are both blind AND
mobility disabled so that they need that ramp... for example, which
another post seemed to forget)
So if you cite the example of a certain design for a pedestrian ramp,
why call that an example of universal design that failed, when it was
never supposed to be that in the first place? It is an example of a law
or regulation ordering a designer to design for it to be "accessible" in
a very limited way (look at teh exact language of the law or reg.)....
and thus this item is ACTUALLY, being more careful with language here
---> an example of an attempt at "accessible design" that in it's
results, favored one disability over another... and thus did not
(accidentally) meet the other definition -- of "universal design".
But if the law or designer never set out to do "universal design" in the
first place, then this cannot be counted as a UD failure.
5. -- Even if we can all think of several "Yes, but...." anecdotes that
seem to describe design problems that we do not, off the tops of our
heads, know how to solve to acheive a performance level that could be
truly "universal".... (or we don't know how to do it, for zero
additional cost, and how to then avoid worries about home re-sale to the
biased, to boot)....
how would those anecdotes or speculative musings determine "... is there
such a thing as Universal Design?"
ALL that these anecdotes actually prove, is that the speakers do not, as
designers, know offhand... how to apply UD to these specific problems.
====
Hell, I'm trained as an architect and I don't know how to apply Baroque
Design to my home, at a price I can afford. (Nor can I be absolutely
sure that it wouldn't interfere with "resale" some day... or might
require me to do a bit of redecorating when the time comes to sell...)
Do those little facts... loom so large, as to call into question --
whether or not "... there is 'such a thing' as Baroque Design?"
Of course not.
==
If lack of a perfect and cheap and invisible UD solution to every
design problem in the world, (or lack of a solution that the speaker
happens to know of... or like) calls into question whether or not UD
ever exists ........ then it sounds to me like the conclusion expressed
in Adrian's rhetorical question, actually may have been his starting
point, and then it sounds like he then "back engineered" the rest of the
posting in order to arrive at the conclusion of that exaggerated
rhetorical question.
UD is more easily acheived in some situations than in others. In some
situations, the design solutions haven't been developed yet. NOBODY
working on UD... EVER promised that UD means that everything would come
quickly & easily, or that it would ever be cheap & perfect, or that
getting there would ever come by any means other than -- decades of hard
design work, from many designers. The rhetorical question which I'm
responding to, seems to imply that such wild promises were made for UD.
In fact, no such promises were ever made.
As designers it is our social & professional responsibility to make a
full EFFORT over time, to find design solutions that get as close to
"universal" or "inclusive" as possible. If we say "I can't think of a
perfect solution to everytning, right now; therefor maybe this is
impossible"... that sort of "giving up, too fast" is precisely how
design progress does NOT get made.
Non-designers often labor under the misconception that design is just a
mattere of "the solutuion pops into your head by inspiration". They
often ask "How would you design this?" as if the designer can give a
fast answer. Then we have to patiently explain that DESIGN IS HARD
WORK.
It is not something that just pops into our inspired artistic minds,
fully developed.
==
"Rehab design", the old "accessible design", and "universal design"
....all have distinct definitions. Let's not mix everything up.
Jim Davis
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