Rabea Zahner

We were tasked with finding various ex­am­ples of how doors are opened, closed and locked as well as of how spaces are entered and left by both going out in search In our own lo­cal­ity and re­search­ing on the web.

I went for a walk through streets nearby and noticed that many houses and public squares are not ac­ces­si­ble for wheel­chair users. That's because most build­ing en­trances consist of steps that block the way. That in­spired me to design my own ramp that neither takes up too much space nor looks like a fa­cil­ity for people with dis­abil­i­ties but is, rather, invit­ing In ap­pear­ance.

I re­con­noitred all manner of lo­cal­i­ties in my sketches so as to gain a better im­pres­sion of what I would be wishing to design for my final blue­print. After giving some thought to the po­ten­tial af­forded by a ramp,

I con­sulted the web, a wheel­chair-bound friend of mine and Rita Ebel, who is known for build­ing Lego ramps. After dis­cus­sions with my target group, I decided to design a ramp that also func­tions as a doormat.

Talking to my friend made me aware of how dif­fi­cult it is to open and close doors when con­fined to a wheel­chair. I ac­cord­ingly de­signed a door that can be opened in both di­rec­tions and fea­tures an in-built door stop. This is ac­ti­vated when the handle is in a straight po­si­tion.

The ramps I ad­di­tion­ally de­signed are for use in a private house­hold. These are two alu­minium ramps that, when not in use, can double up as door mats.

One of the ramps is me­chan­i­cal, which is cheaper but at the cost of de­priv­ing wheel­chair users of a certain amount of au­ton­omy, since they will not usually be able to open it out.
Which is why I fash­ioned another, elec­tric ramp that wheel­chair users can ac­ti­vate them­selves using their mobiles.
The main ad­van­tage of these ramps over other ramps is that they do not take up too much space when stored.

Cre­at­ing ac­ces­si­bil­ity

I have un­der­stood that many places are not wheel­chair-ac­ces­si­ble. We should bear such needs in mind when de­sign­ing spaces and other en­ti­ties and strive to make the world as ac­ces­si­ble as pos­si­ble.