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| Andrew Bird - University of East Anglia |
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My name is Andrew Bird and I work for the UEA. I just really wanted to introduce myself and the university from an architectural point of view and describe the buildings and compliance with the disability laws. We will see how we are tackling the problem of inaccessibility on campus.
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It is probably important to start at the grassroots of the university, which was born primarily out a welfare state post WWII. Society at that point in time wanted to root out the five evils, which were poverty, idleness, disease, squalor and ignorance. That brought through to the schools program and eventually in the 1960’s, these people came into the university age. There was a backlog of something like 930,000 students that was currently being educated in the universities in the
UK
. There was a shortage of five or six universities, and the UEA was fortunate in the 1960’s to be awarded a grant to build the university as we see it today. There are a couple of milestones there. April 1960 is when the University came into existence. It wasn’t until 1963 until the first students were first admitted; there were 112 undergraduate students. We were then operating from a university village, which was a temporary leave near the river area certainly 300 – 400 meters on an incline. The buildings on plan, which are I’ve produced some copies of, the main building here is what we call the Teaching Wall that is along the river. This clustering arrangement of the campus is emanating what was thought to be the Italian hilltop town. It became quite prominent architecturally.
In 1995, it was trying to eradicate the problems associated with disabilities, trying to provide a level playing field for people in the
UK
, of which there are 8.6 million people with disabilities, ranging from visual, hearing, and all physical disabilities. It is quite broad-reaching, for both the institutions and the communities at large to take on. The government decided to implement a plan over a five year period over three phases. The first phase is that it was unlawful to treat a person with disabilities any different than others. The second phase, in October 1999, is to be unlawful to be unreasonable in the way that services are delivered and that education is included in this aspect. In October 2004, the final phase began. It was required that any adjustments must be made to the physical aspects of premises, and this is really where I became involved with universities. It is my role to understand the features of the university and iron those out so it is accessible for people, irrespective of their ability.
We went around commissioning what is known as an access-audit. If effect, a engagement of a professional person to view physical features from the disabled person’s point of view to identify features that prevents barriers to allow access to services, be it a book in the library to a toilet facility; its quite broad-reaching. An access audit is then compiled, stating that something like several point six million pounds worth of work needs to be done. There were 4000 work items to be completed in over 3000 locations. The support of institutions wasn’t there to enable these features to be resolved in one easy flow. The financial resources are very tight in the
UK
university, and therefore we had to come with some strategy as to how to deliver this. We decided to produce a program in effect to feature some body from the roots that anyone would approach the university, primarily the outside aspects of the university, working through the buildings and its services, starting at the entrance doors and moving to the stairs within the building. It ensures that services are being provided. |
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