Universal Design: What If We Didn't Have to Ask for Access?

There is something wonderfully unremarkable about a curb cut. A wheelchair user rolls over it. A parent pushes a stroller across it. A cyclist uses it. Someone pulls a suitcase behind them. Most people don't stop halfway across and think: Wow. What an innovative piece of accessible infrastructure.

They just use it. And perhaps that's exactly the point.

Universal Design asks us to consider human variation from the beginning, rather than designing for an imagined “average” person and figuring out what to do with everyone else afterward. Because when accessibility is considered from the beginning, something important happens: disabled people stop looking like exceptions to the design.

When the person becomes the problem

I think many people with physical disabilities know this experience. You arrive somewhere and discover stairs at the entrance. The counter is too high. The bathroom isn't usable. Or there technically is an accessible entrance—somewhere around the back. Suddenly, you need an accommodation. And attention can quietly shift from the environment to you.

How are we going to accommodate them? How much will that cost?

The person requiring access starts to feel like the burden.

Universal Design asks a different question: why was the space designed in a way that created the need for an accommodation in the first place?

But doesn't accessibility cost more?

Sometimes, yes. But the evidence doesn't support assuming that accessible design is inevitably expensive—particularly when it's considered from the beginning.

A 2020 feasibility study commissioned by the Rick Hansen Foundation compared different Canadian building standards with the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification (RHFAC). It found that thoughtful planning could allow some new buildings to achieve RHFAC certification without additional construction costs. Other accessibility improvements involved relatively small increases. (Rick Hansen Foundation study)

Sometimes accessibility isn't about buying something more expensive. It's choosing non-glare, non-slip materials with appropriate colour contrast while you're already choosing flooring. It's designing a service counter with knee clearance while you're already designing the counter.

As architect Aiden Callison put it, accessible design can be less about spending more and more about being intentional about “what's informing the decisions we already make.” (Abilities Canada) And waiting until later can cost considerably more.

Research summarized by the Centre for Universal Design Australia found additional costs of 0.94%–3.92% for inclusive new builds compared with 2.24%–14.9% for renovations. Circulation space and exterior ramps and stairs were among the most expensive elements to retrofit. (Centre for Universal Design Australia)

Maybe accessibility isn't always what's expensive. Sometimes it's retrofitting exclusion after we've already built it.

What if the ramp is the building?

There's a building in Vancouver that makes this idea beautifully concrete.

ICORD, a spinal cord injury research centre at UBC and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, is housed in the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, which was intentionally designed to exceed minimum accessibility requirements.

One of its central architectural features is difficult to miss: A ramp spirals through the atrium. Not a little ramp tucked beside a grand staircase. Not an accessible route around the back.

A roughly 200-metre ramp allows wheelchair users to move between public levels without relying on an elevator. Its 5% incline is gentler than the applicable code requirement, with level resting areas along the route. (ICORD) The wheelchair user isn't being redirected from the “normal” route.

Accessibility is the route.

Who else did we forget to imagine?

Accessible playgrounds offer another example. An accessible playground allows a disabled child to do their job: play. But what if the wheelchair user isn't the child? What if it's Mom? Dad? Grandma? An older sibling? 

An inaccessible playground doesn't only determine whether a disabled child can participate. It can determine whether a disabled parent can play with their child. That's one of the beautiful things about Universal Design. We don't always know who will eventually benefit from the access we create.

The curb cut isn't valuable because non-disabled people benefit too. Disabled people's access doesn't require a secondary justification. It simply shows us something important: when we design for a wider range of bodies, we often create environments that work better for more people.

What Universal Design has to do with therapy

This is where Universal Design connects with disability-affirmative therapy for me. Disabled people can become incredibly good at adapting. Finding another entrance. Calling ahead. Requesting accommodations. Explaining what we need. Having a backup plan. And perhaps a backup plan for the backup plan, because experience has taught us not to get cocky.

From the outside, that can look like resilience. But if therapy focuses only on helping someone become even better at adapting, we can miss an important question: why are they having to do so much adapting in the first place? People with physical disabilities can spend years receiving a subtle message: your body requires something different. Therefore your body is creating the problem.

Universal Design helps expose the flaw in that logic. Change the environment and sometimes the “problem” changes too.

Someone thought about you before you arrived

There is an experience many disabled people know well: arriving somewhere and realizing nobody thought about you. The step. The narrow doorway. The inaccessible bathroom. The accessible entrance requiring a treasure map, two phone calls, and possibly divine intervention. And then there's the opposite experience.

You arrive somewhere...and it works. No explanation. No special permission. No proving why you need something. Someone thought about you before you arrived.

Universal Design doesn't mean every environment can anticipate every person's needs. But it changes the question we ask at the beginning. Not: how will we accommodate disabled people if they show up? But: how do we design this knowing they will?Because sometimes the most disability-affirming accommodation is the one you never have to ask for.

It was already there.

If you're looking for disability-affirmative therapy in BC, I provide virtual counselling for teens and adults with physical disabilities, chronic illness, medical trauma, and advocacy fatigue. Learn more about Disability-Affirmative Therapy