Universal Design in Educational Environments

This is a draft article on universal design in educational environments. For a complete treatment on universal design, please read The Universal Design Handbook, Preiser and Ostroff, eds., McGraw-Hill, 2001. The chapter on educational environments is a further development of the information below. In time, this material will be distilled and simplified for use in this web site.

1.0 Introduction

This chapter reports on universal design in educational environments and the importance of universal design to educational institutions. It also discusses the influence of educational institutions on the growth and development of universal design. It tracks the evolution of accessibility and universal design in education from barrier removal, through concern with physical features, to other areas such as technology and curriculum. Universal design is especially important in education, in particular because of the role of educational environments as examples that students can draw on later in life, and because of the importance of educational institutions as environments in which inclusion is taught. This chapter also provides recommendations for best-practices and the universal design rationale behind them.

2.0 Background

Schools, colleges, and universities are ideal environments for fostering universal design. Compared to other types of uses, education has the most extensive experience with the broadest range of diverse needs. By comparison, commercial environments are used by large numbers of people from a broad spectrum of the population, but typically in a brief, transitory way. At the other end of the spectrum, employment settings must be adapted to the permanent needs of each individual's disabilities, but most employers do not experience accommodating many different individuals. In educational settings, people with disabilities require individualized semi-permanent accommodation, yet this population is much more numerous and more transient than employment settings. This diversity of experience creates a valuable knowledge base and constituency for universal design.

Educators are also beginning to realize that their responsibility to foster diversity extends beyond racial and cultural issues to physical needs. In the same way that a multicultural curriculum is needed to create racial and cultural tolerance and diversity, universal design is needed to encourage inclusion and acceptance of all abilities. Young people are educated as much by example as by teaching. Environments that segregate teach acceptance of segregation, and inclusive environments teach inclusion. If all students are taught the benefits of inclusive environments through experiencing inclusive education, we will eventually create an inclusive society.

2.1 Four Stages of Accessibility in Education
Historically, accessibility and inclusion in education divides broadly into four stages or eras. These reflect changing attitudes toward disabilities and inclusion, so it is natural that different regions and different organizations have moved through these periods at different rates. Programs and buildings of the first stage had no access provisions. Students with disabilities were often prevented by law from being educated in contact with the general population. In the exceptional instances that students or teachers with disabilities were included at all in public schools and colleges, there was no support from the built environment. Segregated facilities were the norm.

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In the second stage, students were given at least a theoretical right to be included and a right to accommodation for their disability. Federal law provided the springboard for disability rights, and states supported the sweeping change by incorporating at least limited accessibility provisions into building codes. Parents and students fought for the right to education and the right to be included with others. Many barriers were removed, but many others became apparent (GAO, 1995). Although students with disabilities were being educated in the same building as other students, segregation continued, in some cases due to physical barriers and in other cases due to commonly accepted practices of special education as well as discrimination (Ansley, 2000). It became clear that more work was needed on the theoretical framework for inclusion, as well as on the standards for accessibility, but that the relatively limited amounts of major construction in the 1980's limited how much could be accomplished.

The third stage, which we are entering or are well into, depending on location and institution, moves thinking about accessibility in education from a focus on barrier removal and barrier prevention to the challenge of creating broadly inclusive physical environments. The emphasis has shifted from finding some accessible facilities for students with disabilities to identifying and finding the most appropriate way of dealing with the remaining inaccessible facilities. With an increased volume of school and university construction, administrators and designers are beginning to find opportunities for integrated design solutions through the conceptual guidance of universal design. In this stage, integration of students with physical disabilities has been successful, but integration of students with developmental disabilities has lagged behind.

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Signs of the fourth stage of educational accessibility are just beginning to emerge, in which concepts of inclusion and universal design that were learned in the built environment are now being applied to other areas, largely through technology. "Electronic curbcuts", pioneered by Vanderheiden and the Trace Center are informing the design of telecommunication and other electronic devices to remove barriers (Trace Center, 1999). CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST, 1999) is designing digital based curricula which are as broadly inclusive as possible. Previous thinking about physical and sensory barriers is being applied to the broadest range of human abilities, moving beyond concepts of physical disabilities and "hidden disabilities," to include the full range of ages, sizes, and other factors, and beyond physical disabilities to inclusion in all areas.

2.2 K-12 Education and State and Federal Legislation from 1968 to 1990
The concept of inclusive educational environments is new relative to the age of most school and university buildings. Thirty years ago, it was unheard of and often illegal to integrate children with disabilities into the school systems. The passage of the Rehabilitation Act in 1973, with its significant Section 504, and the Education of all Handicapped Children Act in 1975, which later became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), brought children with all types of disabilities into school systems throughout the country. These laws required required programs receiving federal funding to make their programs accessible, and forbade discrimination on the basis of disability. School districts had to figure out how to adapt their programs, their school buildings, and their design and construction practices within a relatively short time. However, the reality of the implementation often only achieved limited access into parts of schools and into programs limited to students with disabilities.

This was followed up in many states by the addition of accessibility provisions to building codes and adoption of disability rights legislation at the state and local level. Although there was wide variation during the 1970's and 1980's in code requirements and enforcement, depending on which state or locality was involved, the inclusion of these provisions across the nation helped set the stage for more comprehensive approaches to the creation of inclusive environments.

2.3 K-12 Education and Universal Design
K-12 curriculum trends in individualized instruction, in combination with the 1970's mandate to accommodate individuals with disabilities, exposed many educators to the broadest range of needs among their students. Parent and students fought for their rights, and slowly, sometimes grudgingly, teachers and administrators who worked with students with disabilties also became advocates for disability rights in the schools. This was especially true in schools serving larger, more diverse populations, where individual educators were exposed to a wide range of needs. The frustrations of accommodating these individuals taught them that the prescriptive federal and state mandates for barrier removal and accessible construction were not always delivering effective accessible environments for the full range of individual needs. (Ansley, 2000)

For example, even after remodeling or constructing buildings to comply with Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act construction standards used at that time, students and employees with disabilities often needed a greater degree of accessibility beyond that found in the newly built or altered environments. Furthermore, the continuing evolution of accessibility standards led educators, parents, and students to realize that they had to think beyond the minimum standards and codes, especially as the 1980 revision of the ANSI accessibility standard (ANSI A117.1 (1980)) and UFAS, the Uniform Federal Accessiblity Standards that are based on it, came into general use. This new ANSI standard was significantly different from earlier standards such as the 1961 and 1974 versions of ANSI A117.1. Much of the barrier removal done in the late 1970's and early 1980's before the widespread use of ANSI A117.1 (1980) did not comply with the dimensional requirements of the 1980 standard, which led many people in education to start thinking beyond the minimum standards in the design of educational environments (see Figure 6). In later years, when the concept of universal design was introduced, these earlier experiences helped educators and facilities planners understand the basic concepts of and the need for universal design.

2.3 Higher Education and Federal Legislation from 1968 to 1990
The passage of the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) in 1968 had a small but noticeable effect on facilities in education. It required federal construction projects to meet certain accessibility standards. Many larger colleges and universities had at least one federally funded building built between the passage of the ABA and the implementation date of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1977, and had to begin to learn how to plan environments for people with disabilities. However, in higher education the major triggering event for disability awareness was the return of veterans from the Vietnam War, many with war injuries, who were being educated with federal assistance. Universities quickly discovered that this vocal and growing population demanded education but could not be served. The passage of the Rehabilitation Act in 1973 and the issuance of Section 504 implementation regulations in 1977 was largely in response to this frustration (DREDF, 1997). Figure 1 is an example of an ABA-influenced design from 1970. Note the new ramp under construction in the summer of 2000 to the right of the front entrance.

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Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) prohibited federally-assisted programs from discriminating on the basis of disability. This included making their programs accessible to people with disabilities. The Rehabilitation Act led to an outpouring of manuals, training sessions, self-evaluations, transitions plans, and, eventually, at least limited barrier removal in nearly all colleges and universities. This extensive examination of the physical barriers to education in the U.S. was in many ways a rehearsal for the passage and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act nearly two decades later. Large research universities, being dependent on federal grant support for their research functions, were especially sensitive to Section 504 compliance.

However, misfortune placed the implementation of the Section 504 in a period of financial retrenchment and low construction volume in higher education. This further reinforced the emphasis on barrier removal instead of creation of inclusive new environments, and on accommodation of individuals instead of creation of inclusive organizations and institutions housed in inclusive physical settings. Many of the barrier removal projects were done in the most hasty and expedient manner possible, resulting in a token level of service to people with disabilities and, in some cases, resentment on the part of other facility users due to the sometimes shoddy or ugly changes for accessibility. Figure 2 shows one example of well-meant but ineffective barrier removal constructed in response to Section 504 requirements.

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The mixed effectiveness of Section 504 barrier removal efforts became evident very quickly as the first generation of mainstreamed students made their way through schools, then colleges and universities, and medical technology allowed more survivors of traumatic brain injuries to be re-integrated into society. Unlike the returning veterans, many of whom had full use of their upper bodies, this newer population brought a much wider variety of needs and a more challenges to the built environment. Many of these individuals' needs, such as for power wheelchair users, people with low vision, deafness, or multiple disabilities, were not met in facilities that appeared to comply with federal mandates, leading those institutions which experienced this disconnect to begin to think much more broadly about the creation of inclusive environments. Perhaps the earliest and most visible change was growth in the numbers of users of power wheelchairs, scooters, and other mobility aids. People using these devices often found that facilities designed for manual wheelchairs were difficult or impossible to use. They often experienced buildings designed with very accessible restrooms, yet with inaccessible classrooms and laboratories. Nothing in the standards prepared colleges and universities for the needs for safety considerations for the deaf, amplification systems for people who were hard of hearing, nor wayfinding and safety issues for blind people.

2.4 The Americans with Disabilities Act
Despite its limitations, Section 504 and the effect it had on school facilities placed many educational institutions at the forefront of creating accessible environments in the 1980s. Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) effectively raised the bar for the rest of the nation to the level that education had been experiencing. Educational institutions could no longer get by with relatively better but inadequate access. Educators and administrators again re-examined their programs to weed out barriers to access, or they were forced to do so by disability advocates who now expected meaningful action on barrier removal. In this re-examination the limited success of many earlier barrier removal efforts gave great impetus to the concept of universal design.


One large effect of the implementation of the ADA was to further standardize many accessibility provisions, by requiring states and local governments to use the more stringent federal standards when confronted with state and local building codes. This led in many states to outright incorporation of ADA accessibility guidelines for construction into state and local codes. The minimum standard of compliance provided by these codes often represented a major improvement in access for students and teachers with disabilities, but they also become ingrained in some designers minds as maximums as well as minimums. See John Salmen's chapter __ regarding how minimums become maximums. This is shown by the barrier removal plan for the three buildings and four building levels of Colonel Wilson School in Figure 3, which provided an accessible route to all ground floor spaces, but not a route that would be effective for either a student or a teacher at a school in that cold, wet climate. Nor does the accessible route at Colonel Wilson school effectively integrate people with mobility impairments with the rest of the school population.

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3.0 Inclusive Educational Environments

3.1 Reasons for Universal Design
Three main factors brought many educators and administrators to begin to think about the concepts we now call universal design. First, it became clear that the variety of needs in the population they served was not met fully by the federal accessibility standards such as ANSI A117.1 (American National Standards Institute), the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), and the ADA Standards for Accessible Design (ADA Standards). In some cases, the architects and administrators interpreting the standards were unfamiliar with the reasons behind them, and failed to follow them adequately. In other cases, the standards themselves failed to serve a broad enough population base.

Second, those codes and standards were changing fairly rapidly, so an attitude favoring minimal compliance quickly became a liability. An elevator that was built to the minimum state and federal requirements in 1979 was no longer large enough in 1985.

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Third, they found that where barriers had been removed in a more thoughtful and inclusive way designed beyond the minimum requirements, there were unanticipated benefits to other segments of the population. For example, elevators, which can carry bulky and heavy loads, are very useful for maintenance staff, but mechanical platform lifts and stair-climbing lifts are not. Full-length mirrors are appreciated by people in wheelchairs, but they are also valued by anyone who needs to make sure they are looking their best. Anyone who has pushed a stroller knows the location of all of the curb cuts and entrance ramps, but if these only allow circuitous routes and serve back door entrances, they frustrate stroller-pushers as well as wheelchair users. The list of multiple benefits goes on and on.

Experience with inclusive environments showed educators further advantages. Educational institutions are examples to their students. During these formative years, children and young adults learn from many sources. The environment within which learning occurs can be a powerful educator, and an inclusive environment can provide a basis of understanding about inclusion. This inclusive physical environment supports an inclusive educational environment in which kids with disabilities can be educated side-by-side with other children. That concept is fundamental to the success of the current movement of genuine mainstreaming of children with developmental disabilities to the greatest extent possible.


This thinking about inclusion extends beyond the physical realm. Most schools make a large effort to educate students about the need to be accepting of other cultures and other races. A physical environment that is inclusive of all needs supports the broader aims of a multi-cultural curriculum by demonstrating in bricks and mortar that inclusion helps everyone.

By the same token, universal design now influences the design of curricula. The beginnings of curriculum approaches that are suited to multiple ability levels are beginning to be seen. Although a very new field, universal design of curricular offerings is getting a great deal of attention and has the potential to become very influential in the future. The Center for Applied Special Technology has been a leader in this field (CAST, 1999).

3.2 Advocacy for Universal Design
The constant, day-to-day realities of accommodating students and employees, as required by Section 504 and by IDEA within facilities that demonstrated the partial successes of Section 504 barrier removal has led made many education professionals, teachers, administrators, and facilities planners to become proponents of universal design. It is more likely in design of educational facilities that the clients and users will be the proponents for more accessibility, not the architects, who are more likely to view accessibility as a code compliance issue. In this way, participatory design of education facilities is important in creating inclusive environments. Ideally, a broad spectrum of individuals should be represented in the design process. But even if they are not, many educators have experience with the broad range needs and will advocate for it in the design process.

To a certain extent, the fairly recent trend toward hiring prominent architects to design signature buildings for educational institutions works against this trend. As physical distance between users and architects increases, communication links can grow thin and opportunities for interaction can decrease. As these communication problems stretch or break the user collaboration which assures consideration of the full breadth of population needs, inclusive design suffers.


4.0 Recommendations for Best Practices

Universal design continues to be very important in educational environments. As discussed previously, schools experience intensive use by a wide range of population representing the full spectrum of needs, so schools need a built environment that supports and integrates all of these individuals without special intervention. In addition, by creating an inclusive environment which encourages the active, equal participation by people with a variety of needs the entire population is educated about the advantages of inclusion and inclusive environments, which should embrace these considerations:

4.1 General Design Standards and Processes

o Anthropomorphic and ergonomic considerations of children and young adults is of paramount importance in designing educational facilities. Standard dimensions for accessibility may not be suitable for the larger range of needs encountered in schools. Furthermore, since buildings typically far outlast the programs that they contain, the building site and envelope should be designed for the full range from small child to adult. These issues influence design of elements ranging from window sill heights to work stations to handrails.

o Participatory Design: This provides the forum for the broad range of needs to be expressed, either directly through people with specific environmental needs or through the teachers and administrators who work with them on a daily basis. Where used, participatory design has proven its value by providing a way for users to insist on the creation of broadly accessible environments through the design process. It is important for facilities professionals to represent the school or college to ensure that the design reflect a broad-based view and not be tailored to the needs of the last student who needed to be accommodated.

o Designing Beyond the Standards: This is essential for the creation of inclusive educational environments. When the minimum requirements become the de-facto maximums, it is a certainty that the user needs will not be met, either due to errors in construction, or because the standards do not accommodate a broad enough range of needs. The best practice is to take on the needs of the whole population as a design challenge rather than relying on minimum standards.


o Accessible to All: All building elements and program activities should be accessible to all of the anticipated building users without assistance or intervention, or else a clear justification as to why not should be written and agreed to with the school users. If certain areas such as libraries or shops will require staff assistance, the school should be made aware of that during the design phase. In addition to applying to people with disabilities, this logic also applies to environments for young children.

o Flexibility and Choice: The most successful design solutions integrate the activities of all elements of the population while also providing choice and flexibility. The redundancy that may result is also an opportunity for a more richly varied design palette. For example, some individuals can not climb stairs. Others have trouble with ramps, but can manage stairs if proper handrails are provided. The best solution integrates both stairs and ramps into the design so that neither appears to be an afterthought. In Figure 7, a former loading dock and service area was reconfigured to provide accessible slopes (nearly all at 5% or less) and stairs connecting four buildings. The fountain (by Alice Wingwall, Berkeley, California) was part of Oregon's Percent-for-Art program, and was designed specifically to enhance the experience of blind and low-vision individuals.

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4.2 Site and Building Planning

o Careful site selection and site planning are the foundation of creating inclusive places. If the approach to development of a site adds access considerations to the design instead of including them from the beginning, the places that are built are almost certain to be unsatisfactory. Accessible routes limited to slopes of 5% or less guarantee inclusion with the rest of the population. If the site is sloping, major level changes along accessible routes should be made within buildings via elevator, as the travel time and effort demanded by long ramps creates de facto barriers.

o Connections: Connections within and between buildings need to allow for quick, convenient travel. Schools and colleges work on schedules with fixed travel times. If these times are not adequate because of excessive route length, someone is probably being denied access to education.

o Ergonomics: Design appropriate to size and physical function of users is essential to universal design. In educational environments, many designers forget that the requirements for children are different than those of adults. The Access Board has published guidelines that although not yet enforceable, provide an initial level of guidance in this regard (ATBCB 1998).

o Power Doors: In keeping with providing an environment that fosters everyone's independence, maneuverability should ensure that everyone can enter the building without assistance. The best-practices design provides power door operators on at least some exterior building entrances and at key internal doors. These should be designed realizing that many users have limited or no use of one side of their body. If button door actuators are used, clearances should be provided to allow use from either right or left hand or by mouth stick without blocking the door operation. This may require enough space for the wheelchair user to operate the button and then turn 180 degrees to move through the door, as shown in Figure 8. Alternatively, motion sensors, multiple buttons or buttons that can be bumped by a foot plate can be provided.

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o Orientation and Wayfinding: Clear, "imageable" building organization and floor plans are essential. Legible environments are often easier to move around in, and much easier for blind people and those with cognitive or psychiatric disabilities to navigate. Even better are those which provide tactile cues at major intersections of circulation systems. A clear approach to building layout has major advantages for other purposes such as supervision and security. Figure 9 illustrates one approach to providing a layout that ties together existing buildings in a way that works well for blind and sighted building users.

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Signs are also an important part of solving wayfinding problems. Directional signage, directories, and signs identifying major spaces should be large and clear so that they are visible to people with low vision and also visible at a distance. At the entrance to each room, signs identifying the space, including raised letters and Braille, must be placed in the precise location that blind people will reach out to in order to read them: five feet above the floor on the latch side of the door. Even small deviations in location make these room identification signs useless to those who cannot see. Going beyond the requirements, room identification signs can contain more information than just room numbers, especially in large buildings with many rooms and complicated floor plans. They should also identify the permanent function of the room, such as library, laboratory, or auditorium, in raised letters and in Braille. Room numbers alone in raised letters and Braille is not enough information for blind people who have no visual cues to guide them. However, most other signs are pointless to provide as tactile signs, because blind people have no way to find the sign in order to read it. Some concepts, such as handrails that provide information in Braille, have been used successfully in certain applications such as museums, but these are only effective if used in consistent ways as an addition to standard locations for room identification signage. (Raynes, 1996)

o Travel Distances: Travel distances within buildings and between buildings should be tested during design with the hourly and daily routine schedules of the students and staff in mind. Many people with disabilities travel more slowly than average people and therefore need more time to get from place to place. Their routes should be shorter than inaccessible alternatives, or slightly longer if necessary, and in total should provide an entire educational environment that works well for them. This thinking should be applied at a detailed planning level, as well as in site and building planning. For example, accessible stations in labs should be close to exits and safety equipment, such as showers and fire extinguishers. Similarly, accessible toilet stalls should be the nearest the entrance to a toilet room, not the farthest away which is commonly the case.

4.3 Building Systems
o Acoustics: Most designers are not aware of the importance of room acoustics in educational environments. Most small children experience at least temporary hearing loss due to allergies and infections at the very age that auditory comprehension is most important, i.e. while they are learning to read. Even in the higher grades and in higher education, research shows that many students are auditory learners, and if they can not hear well or if other sounds are too distracting, learning suffers. Many students with learning disabilities suffer from noise distractions. Good practice includes careful acoustical design in all learning environments. Material choices that have and will maintain the appropriate acoustical qualities are the main vehicle to ensure that this important characteristic is maintained. Beyond basic comprehension of teachers by students, good acoustical design also provides for clear interaction among presenter and audience in a lecture situation, and allows for break-out into smaller groups of students even within a large group setting, such as a lecture hall. In addition to the acoustics of the room itself, the technology that is used for teaching must also be integrated.

In the lower grades, there are also spaces specifically designed for speech therapy. Proper acoustical design of these spaces is particularly important. Not only should they be acoustically isolated from distracting noises, but they should also be relatively acoustically absorbent.

Amplification systems which can amplify all auditory media for individual users are fundamental to providing a learning environment for those with hearing loss. User involvement in the selection and installation of these systems is critical to ensure that
- they are interchangeable with other systems used by the same school or college,
- they can accommodate future technologies,
- they are robust enough to survive the hard use that teachers and students impose on equipment, and
- they are simple enough for everyone to understand.

Some schools are installing amplification systems with cordless microphones for teachers connected to a room amplifier and built-in speakers. Although this technology is effective in ensuring that students can hear presentations from the teacher, it does nothing for communication between students. Curricula are moving more and more toward concepts of cooperative learning in which students work in small groups and learn from each other as well as from teachers, books, and other sources. Good room acoustics that help everyone hear each other is an essential element of a learning environment for this type of curriculum.

For more information, please refer to Chapter __ (Lubman), ASHRAE, 1999, and Lubman, 1997.

o Indoor Air Quality: Indoor air quality and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is an increasing concern for educators. MCS, as a "hidden disability", is sometimes overlooked during the design process, but it is primarily in design of buildings that it can be accommodated. Best-practice design makes available large amounts of outdoor air under the control of the users, most often through operable windows. Careful site planning and building layout is needed to ensure outdoor air entering the building is not contaminated with vehicle exhaust, such as from loading areas, kitchen or laboratory exhaust, or other pollutants. Attention should be paid to interior materials to avoid those which release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) over a long period of time. VOC release may be controlled by "cooking" the building at relatively high temperature before the building is occupied, or by "breathing" it with plentiful ventilation to allow materials to off-gas before occupants move in. For more information, please refer to Chapter __ (Lamielle).

It is equally important to plan a building so that maintenance and remodel activities can happen in the future without needing to shut down the entire facility because of air contamination issues. A modular floor plan which allows part of the school to be separated and which uses windows for local ventilation of individual spaces during construction goes a long way toward preventing future management problems.

o Designing fire and life safety in schools and colleges for the entire population is a new and changing field. Current standards require "areas of rescue assistance" (ARA) to provide a refuge from fire from which people can signal their need for help. While this is probably a major improvement over previous efforts to provide fire and life safety for the entire population, best-practice design would first install fire sprinklers, which prevent fires from growing to a dangerous size, and which have an excellent track record for providing a high degree of fire safety for all elements of the population from infants to nursing homes. Unlike fire alarms, notification devices, and other electrical systems, fire sprinklers have proven their reliability in almost every imaginable situation. Where fire alarms are used, strobes for visual signaling devices are now required in certain areas by the ADA, and should be designed to be easily extended into rooms used extensively by deaf individuals.

In educational institutions, it is also wise to provide training for any part of the population who may have special needs for fire and life safety, such as people with mobility impairments who can not use stairs, deaf people who can not perceive pre-ADA fire alarm systems, blind people and small children who may not be able to find exits, and so forth. By providing training for the target population in addition to the building staff, skills can be provided that have life-long use, with special emphasis on the need for advance planning, use of all possible means for calling for help such as telephones, identification of areas of rescue assistance, as well as people to assist in an emergency.
For more information, please refer to chapter __ [Jake Pauls].


4.4 Functional Areas
o Classrooms: At all levels of education classrooms are remade daily and weekly. Furniture is rearranged, equipment set up and then removed. A universal design by its nature must accommodate uses that can change quickly, so perhaps the most critical elements are the furniture and the equipment. Tables, chairs, projectors, chalk or marker boards all must be designed to accommodate a wide range of body types, adaptive equipment, and sensory disability. The basic tools are to provide: adjustability, especially vertical adjustability of work and equipment surfaces, variety of choice, such as furniture of different sizes, left and right tablet arms, high and low sinks, etc; and multi-sensory equipment including captioning, materials also available on accessible web sites, etc.
o Lecture halls: In a conventional college lecture hall with tablet arm chairs on a steeply raked floor, the conventional solution is to put a little extra floor space for at the front and, if the designers are thoughtful, also at the rear. This leaves the users of these spaces without a writing surface and limited to one or two prominent locations. Even if a writing surface is provided, it is probably provided with the ADA minimum 27" knee clearance (which in this case became a maximum, see Designing Beyond the Standards, above), ignoring the needs of users of power wheelchairs, scooters, and technologies other than manual wheelchairs.

A better solution would provide continuous desks for all at a height appropriate for manual wheelchairs, and with horizontal clearances that allow for wheelchair use. With the appropriate design effort, an accessible route could be created to the front, near the rear, and at least some points in between. This provides locations for students with mobility impairments who need front access, possible due to multiple disabilities, and also provides them the same range of choice that other students experience. At a certain number of locations students would find desks that allow for vertical adjustment by the users, allowing for use by students with power wheelchairs and others whose needs are not met by the standard accessibility compliance dimensions. The front of the room would have an accessible teaching station or lectern, with pull-outs for adaptive technology or lap-top computers, and all controls would be within easy reach for all.

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o Laboratory and Other Special Environments: Easily adaptable laboratory and other special environments are a key component of universally designed schools and colleges. Minimum standards that architects rely on, such as the ADA Accessibility Guidelines, have not yet addressed these situations. Teachers and administrators know that they will be responsible for teaching all students who are enrolled, so if these places are designed to be accessible or at least adaptable, then the school will face fewer problems in the future.

The best-practices solution is to design for a seating level that is easy to incorporate accessible features into. Standard high-bench science labs, for example, do not allow adequate reach across the bench tops. Low lab benches can be designed so that a drawer unit can be removed or a cabinet door unscrewed to reveal a knee space which is adequate for wheelchairs and which allows the users to reach to the full depth of the work surface. The lower height gives the teacher or lab manager the advantage of being able to see farther across the lab while standing, improving supervision and safety for all.

o Theaters and Stages: These can be a design challenge, and because they are often used for graduation ceremonies, public presentations, and other major events, they have the potential to be troublesome embarrassments. The best-practice approach integrates them to the fullest extent into the fabric and perhaps the topography of the building or campus so that movement through, within, and across them is planned to be accessible for all. In particular, the movement of people through this environment for public ceremonies, such as graduation, should be carefully planned to ensure that all students will use the same path throughout the ceremony. Beasley, in Chaper XX discusses the issues in assembly area seating and offers good examples.

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o Eating Areas: Eating areas with proper knee clearance and movable chairs permit a wide variety of choice for all. This less formal, less institutional setting can also encourage more social interaction and it allows for a wide variety of uses, from daily dining to presentations and performances.

o Outdoor Play Areas: These are a fundamental part of the education of children. For more information on this subject, refer to Chapter __ by Goltsman.

o Toilet Rooms: These are covered extensively in federal standards and local codes. There are a few aspects that are especially relevant to schools. One of these is making provisions for attendants of the opposite sex. Children in the U.S. are typically very sensitive to this issue, so providing a reasonable number of unisex single user toilet rooms is recommended.

o Recreational Facilities: Recreational facilities are often overlooked because of mistaken assumptions about the physical needs of people with disabilities. Fitness and regular exercise are very important to people with disabilities, and the opportunities for exercise are typically fewer. Properly designed accessible recreation facilities are very popular, and often require only moderate extra effort to provide for everyone's activities. For example, swimming pools that provide a variety of ways to enter the water, fitness centers designed for transfer from wheelchair to weight-lifting equipment, running/rolling tracks with accessible routes from locker areas, and many others. Locker areas should have facilities that provide for attendants of the opposite sex, which are also greatly appreciated by families with small children.

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o Equipment: All too often, schools and universities build buildings which are accessible and inclusive, and then install equipment which is not in any way accessible. Inclusive environments extend to the furniture, to the electronic equipment, even to the software that runs on the computers. A few examples:

- software, and in particular web sites, should be designed to be accessible via screen readers for people who are blind. This technology reads text, making computers very valuable tools for the blind, but it does not interpret graphics. The top of web pages should have a link to a text-only alternative. For more information, see Chapter ___ (Brewer).
- equipment such as photocopiers should have control panels that are readable by all who may wish to use the equipment.
- adaptive pointing devices, text input devices, screen magnifiers, and many other aids are available to bring computer technology to as many people as possible.
- laboratory equipment should be selected that allows the fullest range of users access to the technology.
- computer technology should be available at a reasonable number of stations equipped with extremely adjustable work surfaces which the users can adjust to suit their individual needs.

As with any best-practices list, the items described above represent the current level of understanding and design. Future research and innovation will undoubtedly improve on our current practices as well as infuse universal design into additional aspects of schools and colleges. However, the basic lessons and fundamental principles discussed above will continue to be useful as guidance in the evolving environment of universal design.

5.0 General Lessons Learned for Universal Design

The most important lesson learned from educational environments is the importance of learning from the diversity of experience that is available in educational environments. Large educational institutions often have a wealth of experience and expertise in this area simply because they have experienced a broad range of issues and needs.

This concept relates to the importance of user involvement in design of places and products. For educational settings, users are an essential voice in creating good places as well as inclusive places, a notion that translates to many other areas of design.

In addition, education is discovering the beneficial spin-offs of universal design in other areas. Fields beyond education will also find interesting and useful analogues to universal design far beyond the built environment.

6.0 Conclusions

Education, with its unique position of dealing with large numbers of people as individuals, has been the breeding and testing ground for many advances in accessible design, and universal design is no exception. Educators are becoming strong advocates for inclusion of people with disabilities, and have learned the advantages of applying the principles of universal design not only to their physical environment, but also to the equipment that they use, to the software on their computers, and even to their curriculum. Where participatory design provides them with an appropriate voice in the design process, they can help architects and designers anticipate the widest range of possible needs and design for them.

Where universal design has created successful learning environments, many schools and universities have found that the resulting inclusion helps support other areas such as multi-culturalism and acceptance of others.

As society moves into the fourth stage of in accessibility education, universal design concepts are essential to educators and designers. These concepts ensure that educational environments continue to inspire a vision of an inclusive society as an example for the rest of the world.

7.0 References

ANSI A117.1-1980. "American National Standard: Specifications for Making Buildings and Facilities Accessible to and Usable by Physically Handicapped People". American National Standards Institute, Inc.

Ansley, J. 2000. "Creating Accessible Schools" in National Center for
Educational Facilities.
http://www.edfacilities.org/ir/irpubs.html

Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB). 1998. "Americans with Disabilities Act: Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities; Building Elements Designed for Children's Use". ATBCB
http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/kids/child.htm

Carnes, T., Nelson, P., Soli, S., and Lilly, J. 1999. "Rethinking Classroom Acoustics: Part One", in ASHRAE Winter Meeting Seminar: HVAC Noise in Classrooms: Overcoming Barriers to Learning
quoted at: http://www.state.fl.us/fdi/edesign/news/9904/acous1.htm

CAST. 2000. "Concepts and Issues in Universal Design for Learning", in CAST, Center for Applied Special Technology
http://www.cast.org /concepts/

DREDF. 1997. "504 Sit-in Commemoration and Anniversary", in Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund Inc.
http://www.dredf.org/504home.html

Lubman, D. 1997. "America's Need for Standards and Guidelines to Ensure Satisfactory Classroom" in 1334d Meeting Lay Language Papers. Acoustics Acoustical Society of America
http://www.acoustics.org/1334d/2paaa1.html

Raynes, C. 1996. "The Raynesrail, a Braille and Audio Handrail System", in
http://www.raynesrail.com/applications .htm

Trace Center. 1999. "General Concepts, Universal Design Principles and Guidelines" in Trace Research and Development Center
http://trace.wisc.edu/world/gen_ud.html

U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). 1995. "School Facilities: Accessibility for the Disabled Still an Issue". U.S. General Accounting Office, in U.S. Government Printing Office
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/

Resources :
"Accessibility Topics" in National Center for Educational Facilities (NCEF)
http://www.edfacilities.org/ir/accessibility.cfm

Bar, Laurel; Galluzzo, Judith 1999 The Accessible School: Universal Design for Educational Settings , MIG Communications

CAST, Center for Applied Special Technology, http://www.cast.org

ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
http://ericec.org/

McGuinness, K. 1997. "Beyond the Basics" in American School & University; v69 n11

Moore, D. 1997. "ADA Means All Children Can Have a High-Quality Education" in School Planning and Management; v36 n10

Rydeen, James E. 1999. "Universal Design" in American School and University; v71 n9
http://www.asumag.com/magazine/Archives/0599ada.html

Sydoriak, D. 1993. "Designing Schools for All Kids" in Educational Facility Planner; v31 n5

Tepfer, F., "Fred Tepfer's Home Page", University of Oregon
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ftepfer/

Trace Research and Development Center
http://trace.wisc.edu/world/gen_ud.html

Captions :
Figure 1: Whiteaker School, Eugene, Oregon: entrance from 1920's
Figure 2: Grants Pass High School, Grants Pass, Oregon (Dull, Olson, Weekes, 1999), Main entrance
Figure 3: Grayson Hall, University of Oregon (Wilmsen Endicott and Unthank, AIA, 1970), front and side entrances.
Figure 4: Ramps at Stella Magladry School, Eugene, Oregon.
Figure 5: Site plan, Colonel Wright School, The Dalles, Oregon, showing accessible routes built in the mid-1990's.
Figure 6: Minimum elevator sizes, pre-1980 and post-1980 ANSI A117.1 requirements
Figure 7: Stairs and Ramps at Cascade Hall Courtyard, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon (Cameron McCarthy Gilbert, and Royston Hanamoto Alley and Abey, 1998).
Figure 8: Path of a left-handed wheelchair user at a right-handed power door actuator.
Figure 9: Main floor plan, schematic design, Gilbert Hall Addition/Lillis Building Complex, University of Oregon (SRG Partnership, 2000)
Figure 10: Lecture hall, Knight Law Center, University of Oregon (YGH Architects, 1999)
Figure 11: Auditorium, Grants Pass High School, Grants Pass, Oregon (Dull, Olson, Weekes, 1999)
Figure 12: Wheelchair user on elevated indoor track accessible by elevator, Student Recreation and Fitness Center, University of Oregon (TBG Architects, 1999).

Sketch biography

Fred Tepfer, (licensed architect, Oregon), is Planning Associate in the University of Oregon Planning Office and ADA coordinator for physical barriers. He teaches at the U. of O. in Education (educational facilities) and in Architecture (architectural programming). He is also in private practice (schools, public and private housing, non-profit organizations).

List of terms used
K-12 : elementary and secondary education, grades kindergarten through 12 (U.S.)
ABA : Architectural Barriers Act
IDEA : Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
higher education : post-secondary education
Rehabilitation Act : The Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Section 504 : Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
ANSI A117.1 : The model accessibility code of the American National Standards Institute
UFAS : The Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards
ADAAG : The Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines developed by the Access Board.
ADA Standards : The ADA Standards for Accessible Design, the legally enforceable version of ADAAG.
The Access Board : The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB)
platform lift : a device using a non-enclosed platform to move one person at a time to a different level.
participatory design : a design process that actively involves the users of a facility (or their representatives) in building planning and design.
volatile organic compounds (VOC): a family of chemical compounds that humans tend to react to.
area of rescue assistance (ARA): a protected area on an upper floor of a building used by people with mobility impairments while awaiting rescue in an emergency.
multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS): a disease in which an individual becomes highly sensitive to many compounds, often many of which are VOCs.
UFAS : The Uniform Federal Accessiblity Standards.