Ensuring accessibility is an important element of the design process

Ian Streets, managing director of About Access, looks at options for ensuring accessibility whether delivering a new-build or a refurbishment

Cost and conservation are key considerations when it comes to planning a major property refurbishment – and increasingly, they seem to be getting equal billing.

We’ve all heard of cases where new build was considered preferable to renovation because it enabled a fresh start and could even be cheaper. But we are still finding examples of clients committing to refurbishment instead of large-scale redevelopment.

There could be various reasons for the switch. Cost will always be the main factor but in recent years that has been influenced more than ever by supply chain problems. Where essential materials are in short supply or stuck in a container halfway around the world, projects will overrun, and time is money.

Why is ensuring accessibility important in the design process?

There are environmental considerations, of course, and also important is the status of a property. If it’s a listed building, there are likely to be limits on the extent to which you can alter it. And even if it’s not protected, the building may have a charm and character which the owners would like to retain.

Our priority is to ensure that whether the building is old or new it is accessible, and our approach to achieving that will depend on the level of detail required by the client.

Completing an access audit on a university building

Taking the example of a current access audit for a university, we asked whether they want a detailed study and report, or something more cursory.

The campus we’re working on has a mix of old and new buildings, which is not uncommon given that many universities have been around for a long time and have also undergone major development over the years.

Our client is adding to its estate by taking on an existing building. They are planning a refurbishment; they want to make sure they get it right and to help with that they have asked us to do an access audit, which will then feed into the design process.

The amount of detail within the audit depends on how disruptive you are going to be with the refurbishment. Often, where you are auditing a live building, you will take into account such features as the height of the door handles and detailed measurements of the accessible WC.

The alternative is to do a less detailed audit, where things like door handles will not be addressed because it has been decided they are going to be replaced.

In this instance, the client has asked for a detailed audit because, although replacement
is an option, they would prefer to retain, reuse and repurpose existing fixtures and fittings where it is feasible to do so.

This approach resonates with other recent scenarios where features and materials have been recycled within a project. We worked on a new-build in London where a steel frame was constructed to support doubling the height space. Having fulfilled that temporary role, the same frame then became a permanent part of another area of the building.

Ensuring layout and facilities remain accessible

At another university building, where a major refurbishment involved relocating the main entrance, it was decided to retain many of the original features. This instance highlighted the need to ensure that the layout and facilities remained accessible after the modernisation and that principle will be at the heart of the new project.

There will be a detailed audit carried out throughout the whole building. We will look at the accessibility of the fixtures and fittings that they already have and that they might want to retain, because if there are items that render the property inaccessible, they will need to be updated or replaced.

Where there are new facilities coming in, they need to be accessible and they must avoid making the updated environment inaccessible. They need to be right for the space where they are installed.

Our detailed report will give the client guidance of what is expected from the new features and the layout in terms of ensuring accessibility.

As ever, it’s worth looking from the outset at how much of the building you want to keep and how much you want to change; how much you can afford to change and how much you are allowed to change.

Definitions are always altering and what passed for good or acceptable practice as recently as the 1980s might now be considered inaccessible and unacceptable, if only because of the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 1995 and the Equality Act, which replaced it in 2010 in England, Scotland and Wales.

Project teams should always aim to improve upon guidance

Other influential sources of guidance include BS8300 and Approved Document M to the Building Regulations but a key point we would make is that a project team shouldn’t feel obliged to just adhere to guidance – they can always aim to improve upon it.

Another key point is that it is a good habit in any major refurbishment to identify and act on any opportunities to make the site more accessible.