This article is also available in: 日本語
Continue on Ed Roberts Campus report. Part 1 is here.
On the 1st floor, there is a water fountain.
It is not just a water fountain but also used as a landmark here because people with visual impaired can be good at distinguishing the sound.
People can give directions by referring a location’s relative proximity to the water fountain like
“Organization A is on the right side of the water fountain. The cafe is on the left side of the water fountain.”
It is also a good meet up spot for people with visual impaired.
Many people have experienced to unlock a door by swiping a security card onto a sensor.
It looks very simple and easy for most people, but actually quite difficult for some people.
To unlock a door, a person usually needs to get close enough and hold a security card next to the reader, which is a barrier for persons who have limited use of their arms.
At Ed Roberts Campus, they implemented a big size card reader panel that is able to read a security card from a longer distance.
Also the lower white wall is special.
Often times, wheelchair users accidentally hit walls with their wheelchairs and that leaves black marks on the walls that are not easy to clean, or even damages the walls.
The white wall here adopts a special material called Trespa, which makes cleaning those black marks much easier and prevents damage.
It costs more than regular wall materials, but it is worth using it because it can be used for long time.
There are wheelchair accessible restrooms in regular male’s and female’s room as well as in family rooms.
In fact, a restroom which can be used by anyone, we call it multiple purpose restroom in Japan, is not many in the US.
On the other hand, most of the male’s and female’s restrooms have wheelchair accessible rooms.
However if persons need help from someone who is an opposite sex, for example from a husband or wife, they cannot use regular restrooms.
I feel more places should have wheelchair accessible restrooms both in regular room and family room so that more people in different situation can use.
There is a balcony on the 2nd floor.
Those vegetable planters are achievable for wheelchair users.
There are beautiful paintings on the 2nd floor.
The Center for Accessibility Technology, an organization which is located in Ed Roberts Campus, raised money to get materials for paintings and asked people with disabilities to paint to deliver their thoughts.
There is a lot of passion written down in words on those paintings.
This is my favorite one:
“One day many people will learn to sign, and we all be seeing voices.
When all the world speaks with its hands!”
Ed Roberts Campus has 7 partner organizations, whose services range from independent living support, disability rights and advocacy, research, fitness and recreation, technology support, and support for parents of children with disabilities.
One heartfelt design of each entrance of the organizations is that they all have the same color and font type in order to help cognitive disabled people avoid confusion.
On the day I visited Ed Roberts Campus, due to my taxi reservation time, I arrived there at 7:30 in the morning which was 2 hours prior to the appointment.
Fortunately, “ADA’S CAFE” connected to Ed Roberts Campus open from 7am ( Ed Roberts Campus open 8am).
I saw some business men who came in and got a coffee on the way to the office too, and felt Ed Roberts Campus is just not for people with disabilities but other people in the community can stop by.
Ed Roberts Campus is a part of many people’s lives.
Making a place where “everyone can access” is not easy.
In fact, Ed Roberts Campus itself is still thinking how to make it more accessible.
Since I am a wheelchair user, I tend to see things as a view of wheelchair user.
But thanks to Susan’s tour and explanation, I have noticed how much effort that Ed Roberts Campus has put on accessibility.
I also realized that it is very difficult for persons without disabilities and even for person with disabilities to create an universal design that meets everyone’s requirement with different types disabilities.
To reduce barriers that people with disabilities are facing, it is very important to hear people with different disabilities’ actual experience and opinions.
I really hope to see more and more universally designed in Japan.