BUILDINGS REVIS(IT)ED
text
Hubert Froyen / Jasmien Herssens / Ann Heylighen
photography
Rob Stevens
text published in A+210, 82- 85
Three public buildings in Flanders were visited by a very
remarkable delegation. A group of architects, architecture
critics and students shuffled blindfolded through the halls
armed with a white stick. They were being led by the hand by
‘experience experts’.
It looked like an upside-down world. People who are blind or partially sighted, must guide the architects,
who for the occasion have been 'blinded' with glasses that simulate various types of vision problems.
The blind guides call small details to the attention of the architects: whether the light was appropriate or
not, the lack of contrasting materials on flights of stairs (which makes the stairs look like a slide), a
railing that is just a little too short. Re-examining buildings in this way is an inspiring opportunity to
review underlying architectural concepts.
Handicap as expertise
An architect's thinking is mainly visual. He works in a cultural space that is strongly dominated by
images. The other senses are taken much less into consideration in the designing, teaching and
evaluation of architecture. The sensory awareness of architects is thus in sharp contrast with that of
persons with a visual limitation, who pay special attention to the tactile and the auditive.
Blindness can, however, refer to many different things. The impression of the space is dependent on the
nature of the visual limitation, but also on the age at which the handicap began and the time that has
elapsed since then. People who still have some vision always try to obtain as much information about
the space as possible from their remaining visual perception. People who no longer have any vision at
all, but at the most can detect light, concentrate more on other sensory information to build up a spatial
representation.
Contrary to what is often thought, a blind person's sense of feel and hearing are not better developed.
Blind persons are more alert to non-visual sensory experiences. Because people without vision are
experts, as it were, in those other sensory observations, they are the ideal experience experts to bring
to light the multi-sensorial qualities of a space or a building. Thanks to their specific association with the
space, people who are blind or partially sighted can appreciate qualities or detect shortcomings about
which the average architect or architecture critic is not immediately conscious.
Universal design
In recent years it has become increasingly understood that analyses of buildings by people with a handicap
– it can be a sensory, but also a motoric, mental or situational limitation – can contribute to a richer and
more satisfying environment for us all. Parents with shopping bags and prams notice obstacles in
shopping centres, children with sensitive bronchial tubes and lungs detect poorly ventilated spaces,
customers with visual limitations draw attention to information that is difficult to read, culture enthusiasts
with auditive limitations report disturbing environmental noises, travellers with stress point out
problems in finding their way, older persons mention bottlenecks and barriers in the infrastructure for
public transport.
Human functional limitations and handicaps are not exclusively the result of physical or mental
characteristics of an individual (medical model). They can just as easily be a consequence of the
maladjustment of the social and physical environment (social model). This reversal of focus – from man
to the environment, from handicap to handicap situation, from the observation that a person is
hindered, to the insight that the physical and social environment have a hindering influence – has farreaching consequences for the design of the environment. The renaissance ideal of design for the universal
person is gradually being transformed into a post-modern objective of ‘universal design’ for the relevant
diversity of real people in real situations.
Hubert Froyen is connected with the PHL (Architecture Dept.). Jasmien Herssens is connected with
the UHasselt/PHL/KUL (ASRO); her research on Universal Design is supported by IWT Flanders.
Ann Heylighen is connected with the KUL (ASRO).
‘Buildings Revis(it)ed’ is an initiative of the departments of Architecture of the Provincial Hogeschool
of Limburg, the Catholic University of Leuven, the Hogeschool for Science and Art at Brussels / Gent
and the Hogeschool at Antwerp. It was realised with the support of 'Gelijke Kansen in Vlaanderen',
and in co-operation with 'Blindenzorg Licht en Liefde' / 'Zicht op Cultuur', the 'Vlaams Architectuur
instituut' - Antwerp, 'Averechts', 'Archipel', 'Architectuurwijzer' and 'Stad en Architectuur'.
--Stuk, Leuven
26 October 2007
Neutelings Riedijk Architects by Koen Van Synghel
I must admit that an afternoon on the town with people who are blind or partially sighted opened my eyes
to details such as a railings, but also and especially to the amazing way that architecture can be read by
the senses of feel, hearing and smell.
The experience was also terrifying. During a blind visit, the simplest things – such as going up stairs,
crossing an open space or going to the toilet – lead to fear and suspense that even Hitchcock could not
match. For partially sighted people, buildings are often labyrinths or even pitfalls. Each corner is a
dead-end, an open space is an endless emptiness.
Architecture, unlike the plastic arts, is a medium that must provide comfort, a sense of wellbeing
without disturbing or intrusive influences.
And thus, in the company of a blind person, a handle, the handrail of a banister suddenly feels
different. The handrail of a banister, yes the 'hand' rail! Buildings can also take you by the hand, point the
way or take you by the arm. Certainly when you do the test yourself and, wearing jet-black lenses, try to
find your way through a public building, it becomes haltingly clear that you are at the mercy of what you
can feel with a white cane, or even more elementary, with your hands. An open plain or a courtyard is
suddenly no longer a place, but an intangible space, delimited by walls, window sills, steps, a
balustrade or a gaping emptiness. The help of a handrail, that begins beyond the first step, comes too
late!
Independent
People who are blind or partially sighted want to maintain their independence. To avoid the stigma
of being handicapped, they train themselves to be able to get around independently on the street
and in public buildings. But when designing, architects are so busy with other things as they work out
the details of a building that people who are blind or partially sighted are often forgotten.
The feeling of walls, doors and thresholds, the acoustical assessment of small doorways and high
ceilings, the continual decoding of buildings by means of hand, stick, ear or smell, means that for a
blind person, architecture has something in common with the story of the labyrinth of king Minos.
The architect of that labyrinth was blinded after construction was completed so he could not reveal its
secret to anyone. But ultimately the way out was found using the thread that Ariadne had spun.
Hopefully architects can become more enthusiastic about spending time on railings and balustrades, on
installing guide groves in footpaths and floor tiles, on applying high-contrast materials to enable partially
sighted people to more easily find their way through streets, plains and courtyards. Who knows, maybe
with all of these interventions they will spin the ingenious thread of Ariadne.
[A version of this text appeared previously in De Standaard of 6 November 2007.]
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Concert Hall, Bruges, 10 October 2007
Robbrecht & Daem
by Caroline Goossens
At the Seminary in Bruges we visited the installation of Blindenzorg Licht en Liefde: a tour of twenty
minutes through the darkened interior of a compact box. There were three simulations: a street, a pub
and a public garden, to enable a seeing person to get an idea of how a visual limitation influences the
experience of reality. A partially sighted ‘experience expert’ – the fish in the water – pilots a row of
shuffling architects through an unreal environment. The followers hold on to each other tightly and to
anything they encounter along the way, but especially to the knowledge that this a temporary – and also
instructive – scenario. Now and then, unexpectedly, the suppressed uneasiness suddenly changes into a
gripping terror. But the real blow follows immediately after the return to the bright world, with the
realisation that the rigid framework that structures life so routinely, is actually wafer-thin. In the dark you
meet, first of all, yourself.
Then, once again blindfolded, with a reservation ticket in their hand, they must find their way to
the right seat in the monumental Concert Hall. This experience is almost at right angles to the one in
the cramped simulation box of Licht en Liefde. Yet, here also, as soon as it is dark, the space is divided
up into successive sequences. Just as in the simulation box, an ethereal environment focuses attention on
the subject. Here also, sound and smell can help, but mainly one has to feel. The architecture reveals
its invisible borders by changes in temperature, light, smell and sound. Also, in its materialisation and
details, the Concert Hall gives something to hold on to, both physically and mentally.
Universal Design
During an evaluation discussion at the end of the visit, the partially sighted user-experts give a
positive reaction to the intrinsic qualities of the Concert Hall, although a number of difficulties remain
in the area of physical accessibility and ease of use. With the suggestion of technical (standard)
solutions for this, the sparks begin to fly: Universal Design – the framework assumption for this initiative –
envisions more than the adaptation of a design to specific needs. Universal Design shifts attention from
the average user to the specific, limit-defining user. It adjusts the design requirements to weaker, less
dextrous, ‘outsized’ or foreign-language users, which enables everyone to experience the design as
easy, efficient and safe.
This is not a correctional attitude. Universal Design may not be the result of adaptations based on an
arsenal of rules and regulations with regard to purely technical questions. Someone who designs
‘inclusively’, takes the problems of specific users into consideration during the entire design process. In
that way, the new paradigm can provide new opportunities for architectural renewal by breaking down
patterns of thinking that have become too standard. In the description of the assignment, UniversalDesign experts prefer descriptive input which can have a stimulating effect on the design, above
prescriptive input, that can be viewed as an impediment to freedom of design. The blindfolded visit to
the Concert Hall and the resultant insight that the multi-sensorial experiencing of a building can
provide added value, seems to substantiate that reasoning.
Yet, there is a real danger that inclusive design might lead to generic architecture. Here is an example:
Although the bridging of a split-level barrier is normally done by means of steps, with a platform-lift or a
sloped area next to it, according to universal-design logic, there should not be different levels at all.
Then the differentiation of users is swept away.
Inclusion is always preceded by exclusion. Inclusive design assumes adaptation, setting things right,
improving, making equal. Admitting guilt, also. This starting point might be a great hindrance to the
ambition for renewal.
How then should a designer deal with Universal Design, a concept that in future can only increase in
importance? The tour through the dark simulation box, with its lasting experience of fundamental
exclusion, might provide inspiration for a possible answer. Suppose that diversity were valorised by
making it explicitly present. Or even by extrapolating it. If an environment approaches all users
exclusively, does that not generate a new form of inclusion? Does not such an approach, how precarious
it may be, offer more potential for the inspiration of the design process and for the quality of the results? Or
even for new possibilities of differentiated use of public space?
And, finally, will this thinking pattern be able to reduce the chance that Universal Design will get
stranded as just another architectural specialisation in the unfertile soil of the free market economy?
--
VAC, Hasselt
12 October 2007
Awg architects in co-operation with a2o architects
by Lars Kwakkenbos
Architecture is a discipline in which the implications of a handicap are reduced to their true proportions. A
blind or partially sighted person does not find it very logical if the buttons for each floor are side-by-side in
the lift, since a lift goes up and down. Whereas someone with good vision reads the numbers on the
buttons, a blind person must try to interpret the place where the buttons are located.
Another example: What can you do to solve the problem when a blind or partially sighted person enters
a building and cannot easily find the reception desk? The reception desk can be moved, but where?
From the standpoint of the blind or partially sighted person, the answer is: the reception desk must be
easy to find, the entrance must be oriented to it, so the chance is small that a person with a visual
limitation will walk in the wrong direction. But you could also reason the other way around, from the
perspective of the reception desk: the people who stand behind the reception counter must be able to
see who comes in, so they can help if necessary. The entrance of the building must therefore be in
view of the reception desk.
The practice of architecture, thanks to the fact that its challenges are so concrete, generates a multitude of
such questions that put the real dimensions of a handicap in focus. Conversely, experiences of people
who are blind or partially sighted can help to give a sharper definition of architecture as a discipline
and practice.
Beauty and politics
Architecture is a barrel full of conflicts. There are enough people who are blind or partially sighted all
together – certainly with regard to public buildings – that they should be taken into consideration to
the extent possible. To the extent possible? Architecture is also politics: the weighing of ideals and
interests of various parties. Having the floor numbers for the lift next to each other might be more
attractive, or less expensive. How much play is there in the construction budget of a governmental building
when it relates to better accessibility for people who are blind or partially sighted? You will never be able
to satisfy all wishes. But all the evaluations that must be made for specific needs can help to define
the true beauty of architecture more than a beautiful glass wall or a subdued grey interior, which are
hell for someone who does not see well.
Thanks to new media, buildings are easily seen around the world. Companies use them for
advertising, developers use them to attract investors or a government uses them to build up cultural
capital. The images that are sent around usually say nothing, however, about how the buildings are
put together. The way people who are blind or partially sighted experience buildings – a ‘multisensorial’ experience with more attention to non-visual senses – can contribute to an on-going
emancipation of architecture as a discipline and as a practice. We live in a time when all kinds of
disciplines and media, more than ever, are interwoven. As soon as things start to become entangled,
however, the power of the strongest tends to prevail. At the moment, images are very prominent.
Maybe an architect should be more conscious of the fact that he is not a plastic artist or an advertiser,
but an architect.
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