Designing for People
by Ronald G. Shapiro, PhD
A well designed building needs to be safe, accessible, friendly, beautiful and fun for people to use. As there are creative interior designers who are demonstrating how to bring beauty and fun to your building’s interior, I’ll focus on the first three needs: safety, accessibility and friendliness.
In a public building all doors in hallways should open towards the outside so that someone exiting a building quickly in case of a fire or other major problem can simply push their way out without needing to pause to determine the way the door opens. On the other hand, doors to individual rooms might open into the room so that: 1) if someone starts to open a room door and they see smoke or flames they can close the door quickly and retreat towards windows and 2) people exit- ing down the hallway don’t get trapped by an office or hotel room door sloppily left open by an person exiting. The doors open towards the outside guideline may be misinterpreted to mean that all doors leading to hallways should open by push- ing. Indeed, they should not! Doors to stairwells leading to an underground part of the building should be pulled from the ground level so that people don’t accidently (in a smoke filled building) go from the ground floor to underground by acci- dent. As an added safety and friendliness measure, the hinges and knobs on doors should be visible. While hinges and knobs might not be the most fashionable hardware in the building, people do use hinge and knob information to guide their behavior as they approach a door. If there is any doubt about whether a door should be pushed or pulled, writing “push” or “pull” in large letters on the handle, push bar or push plate may be helpful.
Kitchen appliances such as ranges should also be designed for safety and convenience. People should not have to reach over a pot of boiling water or a frying pan with hot oil in it in order to adjust the range temperature or shut off the range. Ideally, the range would shut off automatically if someone leaves it on after it is no longer needed. The knobs and dials should be designed so that people unfamiliar with the appliance can quickly and accurately determine which knobs control which burner. Similarly faucet, refrigerator, washing machine, dryer and shower controls should be intuitive.
Public buildings need to be accessible. There are accessibility standards for persons with disabilities for public buildings such
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as stores and offices. Within your own home determine what accessibility you, your family and guests require. If you have small children visiting, will they be able to find a comfortable chair, open doors and windows which you want them to be able to open, and not be able to open the ones that can get them into a dangerous situation. If you will have senior citizens or individuals with crutches visiting are you avoiding trip haz- ards and slippery surfaces which can lead to serious accidents? If you have guests who use a wheel chair will they be able to get in and out of the building and move around easily within the building? If your family is moving into a house with lots of stairs do you have a plan for dealing with the possible fracture, sprain or strain which would temporarily prevent someone from climbing stairs easily?
Light switches can be very challenging. Light switches should be arranged so that any visitor can quickly and easily find and operate the correct light switch for the lights that they need in the dark. Is should be obvious from looking at the switch whether the light is on or off. Wall plugs can be dangerous, too. If you may have small children visiting be sure that the outlets are protected from paper clips and other similar inser- tion. Also, be sure that you have enough outlets well posi- tioned to avoid the need for extension cords.
Power outages do occur at the least convenient times. So do fires. Be sure to include having easily accessible flashlights and fire extinguishers into your design. While they may not be the most attractive items, they may be the items which save people and property. Both of these items can even be mounted inside cabinets so that they are always in the same place, and are easily accessible. Also, be sure that everyone mature enough to handle the situation can reach for and knows how to turn off water, appliances and electricity and use fire extinguishers as required.
Finally, prepare an emergency plan and when all is said and done practice emergency procedures with your family regularly.
1I would like to thank Dr. Margarita Posada Cossuto for helpful comments.
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