Professional career and personal experience endorse Enrique Rovira-Beleta (Barcelona, ​​1958) as one of the top experts in accessibility. A wheelchair user since he was 23 years old, this architect has spent four decades promoting the removal of architectural barriers and working to make homes, buildings and cities more comfortable and accessible not only for those with disabilities, but for all people. And always with the premise of “unnoticed accessibility”, which is not noticed.
“That is the drama of my work, that you cannot see it, that you include things that nobody realizes until they need them,” says Rovira-Beleta, who was responsible for accessibility at the Barcelona Olympic and Paralympic Games and today He continues to advise governments, institutions and companies on architectural design decisions to make life easier for people, in addition to training architects and professionals from different fields in accessibility and universal design at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, where he is a professor.
Accessibility has been guaranteed by law in Spain for two decades, so it is conceivable that it is already a premise internalized by all architects and taken into account in all construction or renovation projects for houses, squares…
Yes, but not sufficiently or adequately, because there is a lack of training. The only architecture school in Spain that has a compulsory accessibility subject is the UIC, which I happen to teach. If you don’t pass it, you’re not an architect. And there is no training in accessibility in design, interior design and decoration schools, in law, education, nursing…
Do all these professionals need to know about accessibility?
Of course, because now there are more and more elderly people and they all want to continue living at home and doing what they like; but houses, businesses and cities are not prepared for it. The architecture of the 21st century is the architecture of the elderly. And accessibility, which before was something that concerned a few, the group of people with some kind of disability, now concerns everyone. In ten years, homes and streets will be full of older people who no longer see the same, hear the same, walk the same or understand the same; and we must change the cities but also the training of all professionals so that they know how to address these needs from their field.
When you talk about an accessible building, you immediately think of ramps. It’s enough?
Obviously not. We need reserved parking spaces, an entrance with a ramp, a magnetic loop designed so that people with hearing problems can listen through the hearing aid, a haptic map where information can be seen, touched, heard… It is always an advantage to work thinking of people with severe disabilities, because if you think of the most affected, everyone wins.
That is design for everyone, because if the wheelchair passes, we all pass; if the sign includes Braille, it is read by the blind and we all read it, if the signage includes colors it helps the person with cognitive problems but also the foreigner who does not understand the language… Accessible design improves comfort and quality of life of all people: those who live, those who visit and those who one day will grow up there.
In the case of houses, how should they be to be able to grow old in them?
A house where I can visit. The measure of the architecture of the 21st century is not what Leonardo Da Vinci said, it is the wheelchair. That is to say, that the houses have to be designed without any steps to enter the building, none! And with the phone at a height that I can call myself and the child from the seventh.
What else?
The elevator must be for 6 people so that the chair can enter without disassembling it and it must be possible to reach it on a plane or with a smooth ramp (not a slide!) with handrails, which gives safety to the elderly. Then, the doors have to be 80 centimeters and the corridors one meter, because that’s how I go through and everyone else goes through. And the bathroom, in addition to having the toilet 45-48 centimeters from the floor, must be designed to be able to close the door if you enter with a wheelchair. And it would be nice to be able to go out on the balcony without any steps.
And the rest of the rooms?
That would be the standardizable accessibility for all houses. On that basis, everyone could add the adaptations they need at each vital stage or according to their circumstances for little money.
And in the street? What accessibility measures do you consider basic?
Barcelona is a good example. On the occasion of the Olympic Games, the so-called Barcelona ford was set up, a 10% ramp that covers the entire pedestrian crossing and facilitates the mobility of everyone: young people, older people, scooters, bicycles, wheelchairs… Another key point for accessibility is transportation. The bus tells you how much is left until it arrives, it has special seats, there is a ramp to make it easier to get on and off… And on the metro you have an elevator (although more would be needed and they are always transparent so that if you stay locked up you can see and the deaf can communicate) and guide strips that take you from the elevator to the ATM, and from there to the checkpoint, to the elevator that goes down to the platform…
In terms of transportation, what is missing are more adapted taxis. It would also require more accessible signage -that can be seen, heard and touched-, and inclusive parks and gardens such as those that are beginning to exist and where children with and without disabilities can naturally share swings, games in Braille and routes.
Is Barcelona then the most comfortable city for you in terms of accessibility?
Berlin competes with him. There all the shops are on level ground, without steps, and they keep the sidewalks clean. On the other hand, I was disappointed in Stockholm because they make everything special for the disabled, as if it were a third sex, and I defend that the bathrooms, for example, be the same but accessible.
Do you think that building regulations should incorporate more accessibility obligations?
What is needed is to apply quality control and implement a seal that certifies the quality of accessibility, for example, awarding more or less stars as in hotels, and rewarding those who introduce improvements above the norm. And all of this is supervised by experts in accessibility accredited with approved titles, because details count a lot, and there is a lack of training both among the architects themselves and among those who carry out the works. Then you go to a hotel and you find slides instead of ramps or poorly placed bars in the adapted bathroom.
Isn’t that the responsibility of the architect who projects the works?
In architecture, as in medicine, there are specialties: construction, facades, infrastructures, facilities, and also accessibility. But of the latter there are very few experts and a lot of work. Also within companies, where accessibility should be audited to avoid accidents, because not only the blind stumble or collide, but also the clueless; and not only the deaf have problems with language, also foreigners.
So improving accessibility is a win-win and great business, but there aren’t enough experts to do that consulting and certification because there are few specialized courses. In 2010, I was a pioneer in promoting an interactive online postgraduate course in Accessibility and Universal Design at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, in which we have students from all over the world and from different disciplines, not just architects.
