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Over the last 40 years, I've designed Child Care Centres for both the private and public sector, around 20, I guess. They each have one common thread, namely, good access. Mothers with prams and a toddler in tow, vehicular movement and safe separation for daydreaming pedestrians, consideration for the circulation spaces required by groups of people moving together,  shower and toilet facilities for those little accidents, with all the space required for a teacher to assist in the cleanup... You get the idea. Identifying these thoughts for design generally, doesn't consider the Building Code's requirements for disability access. However, if you resolve those parameters adequately, then you'll quickly see that a person who takes advantage of the use of a wheelchair to assist with mobility, can readily circulate within the spaces you've provided and compliance with the Disability Access to Premises Standards 2009 is easily achieved.

So what are the key elements of circulation in a child care centre?

1) Safe car parking, wide enough for a parent to unload the children, unfold a pram, grab all the bags etc, all the while keeping the children out of the traffic aisle. It's true that you must provide a car space compliant with AS 2890.6, which conveniently satisfies the needs of every parent drop off. If only you had the luxury of space to provide an open shared zone between every two vehicles!

2) Safe, step free walkway so that mum can push the pram with one hand, while holding an excited toddler in the other. Conveniently, you must provide a step free accessible path of travel at least 1m clear wide, for wheelchair access from the accessible vehicle bay to the principal pedestrian entry, all to AS 1428.1. Why not make every space as useful to accomodate prams?

3) A step free entry door, preferably under cover, in a zone secured by fencing so that toddlers cannot run off into the carpark, with circulation space adequate for mum to park the pram, step around it, and operate the security door. Under the BCA and AS 1428.1, you must provide a door with min 850 clear opening, with accessible lever action handles, with enough circulation space for a wheelchair user to side up against the door and operate the intercom and levers. There are strict minimum circulation spaces required on the hinge side and the handle side of the opening.

4) A step free door threshold, for convenient pram access. You must provide a step free threshold for disability access to AS 1428.1

5) The ability to turn the pram around and exit the door without assistance. You must provide circulation space in a corridor to enable a wheelchair to turn 180 degrees, to AS 1428.1 Similarly, the exit side of the door must provide at least the min circulation spaces required for  wheelchair user to open the door from the inside to exit without assistance.

I could continue this process throughout the child care centre and into the playground, but by now you ought realise that disability access is not a burden, in fact, it is quite a useful design feature for everyone, particularly in a child care setting.

There are exceptions to the requirement for disability access within child care centres, store rooms for instance, and some other areas. Please send us your design for a review prior to DA so that we can assist you in meeting the disability access requirements without compromising child numbers.

There are numerous private colleges throughout Sydney and we are regularly asked to attend the site to review a problem raised by the Building Certifier during construction. A little bit of forward planning can eliminate those frustrating moments and delays.

We recommend that a review of the design drawings be undertaken prior to the commencement of construction, at the latest. This enables us to guide your design decisions with respect to the built environment, to minimise the potential for a claim abasing you under the Disability Discrimination Act 1993. You are further notified to review your obligations under the Disability Access to Education Standards prepared by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

For any School, BCA Classification 9(b), with very few exceptions, an accessible unisex bathroom must be provided. The exact circumstances of your development will enable an access consultant to determine whether any of the potential exceptions apply to your development, therefore, you really ought to issue your plans early in the design stages to satisfy yourself that you have adequate floor area and circulation spaces to meet the requirements of the Building Code.

Depending on the door location and plan layout of fitments, the space required for circulation space within an accessible toilet must be at least, say 2640 x 2100mm,  clear of wall linings, tiles and so on.

There are also mandatory inclusions under AS1428.1 for instance:

• An accessible pan & seat
• A sanitary pad disposal unit
• Grab rails and back rest
• A vanity basin without plumbing protruding underneath and onto the floor
• A shelf
• A coat hook
• A door with a minimum clear opening of 850mm (a 920 door leaf might just achieve that depending on the installation technique and thickness of the door).
• Adequate lighting
• A non slip floor surface
• appropriate accessible signage
• accessible door furniture

It’s a best case scenario to send us your plans prior to the commencement of construction (at the latest) so that your layout can be certified as capable of compliance prior to your commencement.

There are numerous standards that apply to new apartment developments in NSW.

The NSW Gov have implemented the Apartment Design Guide which requires diversity in apartment design to accomodate the 20% of our population who are living with disabilities. Councils too have recognised that there is an ageing population that faces access challenges. Indeed, so many people make up the demographic of over sixty fives that it is recognised that home care will be the go to retirement plan, usurping Retirement Villages. The future will see home owners seeking to modify their dwellings to adapt to ageing and frailty, which can be done discretely and without devaluing the usefulness of the property to future owners.

There is in NSW, and will continue to be a massive imbalance in the available accessible or adaptable homes suitable for this ageing group.

The Savvy Councils have insisted on a higher proportion of "adaptable housing" and "Livable housing" in consumer derived apartment developments. Often these measures are in addition to the State Government minimums.

We are regularly assessing developments for compliance with:

• AS 4299 Adaptable Housing Standards
• Livable Housing design Guidelines
• Senior's SEPP housing
• AS 1428.1 access throughout the common areas of class 2 developments.

These planning regulations often compete and contradict, so we have developed clear method of assessment to guide developments through the minefield of access requirements and regulatory controls.

You’re a tenant and you’re establishing a new business, a restaurant for example, in a building that is required to be accessible, and you’re wondering about that new toilet. Should it be accessible? Where do I start? What are the regulations for a disabled toilet in NSW?

Don’t get caught out. In our restaurant example, the building code in NSW requires accessible sanitary facilities where there are 20 or more occupants in the building. If your building has accessible facilities for use by your patrons, then you’re in luck. Otherwise, you'll need to provide an accessible WC capable of compliance with the Australian Standards 1428.1. There are very few exceptions established by an examination of the Disability access to Premises Standards 2010, which we can assess only by examination of the peculiar circumstances of your development.

Depending on the door location and plan layout of fitments, the space required for circulation space within an accessible toilet must be at least, say 2640 x 2100mm,  clear of wall linings, tiles and so on.

There are also mandatory inclusions for instance:

• An accessible pan & seat
• Grab rails and back rest
• A vanity basin without plumbing protruding underneath and onto the floor
• A shelf
• A coat hook
• A door with a minimum clear opening of 850mm (a 920 door leaf might just achieve that depending on the installation technique and thickness of the door).
• Adequate lighting
• A non slip floor surface

It’s a best case scenario to send us your plans prior to the commencement of construction so that your layout can be certified as capable of compliance prior to your commencement. We get calls from people who have been rejected by there certifier on completion, every week. You don’t want to be that person.

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) is the UK's representative forum for the professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations in the construction industry. It has published a new "Essential Principles Guide for Creating an Accessible and Inclusive Environment" which aims to support, guide and motivate clients, developers and contractors to achieve high standards of access and inclusion in all their projects. 

If leaders in the construction industry champion inclusion from the outset, those employed to design, construct and manage projects are more likely to achieve high quality accessible and inclusive developments.

Building owners and developers will greatly benefit by generating a development that will:

1. Place people at the heart of the design process
2. Acknowledge diversity and difference
3. Offer choice where a single solution cannot accommodate all users
4. Provide for flexibility in use
5. Create an environment that is convenient and enjoyable for everyone to use.

Inclusive design does not need to increase costs. If planned and integrated into the client’s business case from the outset it can be cost neutral. Redesign and post completion retrofitting can be very expensive, can lead to compromise and inefficiencies, and even legal redress if discrimination is the result. Access by design will generally provide a much improved user experience where independence and dignity can be reliably maintained, compared to relying on management arrangements, such as the need for a member of staff to operate a portable ramp.

Sydney Access Consultants are committed to removing the barriers to access, one step at a time.

For full details see CIC website.

The history of Jakarta is fascinating. It was the home of the Dutch East India Company for a few hundred years and the Dutch influence remains obvious in much of its historic architecture. The population is a beautiful mix of multicultural influences developed over centuries to the uniquely Indonesian culture that remains today.

Jakarta is a vibrant modern city with a population estimated to be over 12 million inhabitants. At street level, an Australian Sydney resident would think the streetscape is total chaos. It's a great experience. There are people riding motorbikes everywhere, seemingly without restriction, street food appear to line every road obstructing the footpath where there is one, and where there are no food stalls, or street hawkers, there are motorbikes and vehicles parked. Stepping out into this chaos means you need to look both left and right for oncoming motorcycles. Crossing the road is even more challenging, weaving in and out of bikes and vehicles, jumping and hopping and scuttling out of harm's way.

A city centre bus network, in an effort to avoid all this footpath activity, and provide a peaceful spot to await a bus, has been installed in the centre of the road on an island platform about a metre above the ground. It is accessed by lift or otherwise by stairs from footpaths on each side of the road. Special buses with doors half way up the sides use the middle lane of traffic, far from the majority of the motorcycles, that cling to the left lane, most of the time. It's more of a vibe than a rule. There are much smaller buses that pick up pedestrians from the footpath, and these, I suppose, travel shorter distances in and around the city centre.

How can such a hostile environment be made accessible for people who live with disabilities? A person living with disabilities must find their way through the chaos to the lift at footpath level. That's currently an impossible task in most instances. 

Other Asean nations have considered this by providing sky bridges and a network of elevated pedestrian ways. In Sydney, we've got a network of pedestrian tunnels all over the city. None of these expensive solutions are particularly relevant to Jakarta, because of its large sprawling city, high tropical rainfall and subterranean swamp like foundations.

The Old City precinct of Jakarta provides both a clue and a role model. It excludes all motor vehicles. Street hawkers are restricted to create a pedestrian precinct that is enjoyed by everyone, year round. People ride pushbikes, push prams, stroll in family groups, enjoy the museums, free of the chaos that represents the typical Jakarta streetscape.

Use the Old City as a model solution? It is possible to create small local and inclusive pedestrian environments by planning pedestrian precincts dispersed widely throughout the city. These need not be large areas or cause great disruption, but are small community based pockets of space involving vehicle exclusion zones. Such community centres could readily be linked by small but accessible bus transport systems, linking to the larger bus and rail infrastructure that exists across Jakarta.

One of the difficulties that communities in Australia seem to have, is that we've developed design standards for accessibility targeting the Universal person to try and remove a wide range of access barriers. This Universal person is someone who does not actually exist.

Humans have a great capacity for empathy, but to empathise, putting oneself in the shoes of another, one first has to try and put a face to that thoughtfulness. Well, that's at least what I do. When I think of this universal person with a disability, I imagine my dear old father, 90 years young, deaf in one ear, difficulty seeing things in low light levels, challenged by steps, out of breathe by long walks, moving from chair to chair for support, occasionally having difficulty putting words together that used to come so naturally, accompanied by my young niece who has three children, one walking independently, two in the pram, the four of them are easy for me to imagine, and between them they know three words in Indonesian.  They are catching a bus to the Jakarta City centre to explore all that it has to offer. If we can design our smart cities for them, then most of the barriers for people living with disabilities will fall away.

Sydney Access Consultants are removing the barriers to disability access one step at a time.