Sunday 30 July 2017

My beef with architects

Let me clarify something at the very start: I have nothing against architects; I have architect-relatives of many hues: brother, cousin (late, still living), son/daughter of of cousin, and so on.in short, to use a PGW-ism, you can't throw a cat at a family gathering of mine without it braining an architect or two.

My gripe with architects is that their idea of aesthetics seems to almost demand lots of steps and consequently inaccessibility to a wheelchair user such as I! I have long carried on (e.g., see my blogpost http://differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in/2012/01/ingenious-hurdles-to-access.html) my quixotic joust with the architects who build these sadistic `windmills'. Another of my blogposts http://differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in/2012/06/whither-universal-design.html talks about our National Institute of Design which is like something out of a nightmare of a wheelchair user.

This conviction of mine that accessibility is a blind spot for architects - in fact even that advertising this blind spot is almost necessary for being considered a good architect - was brought home to me with a thud when I saw a list of what were considered among the best recent constructions in
http://www.earthamag.org/stories/2017/7/24/not-just-another-brick-in-the-wall-10-indian-architects-who-are-building-sustainable-homes

I keep ranting and the architects keep saying `there,there', as if I were a little child throwing a tantrum! How I wish Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier had been locomotor-challenged! Will somebody please take me seriously?

3 comments:

  1. Spot on. They just don't have it in their curriculum. And also seem to lack common sense

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