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The entrance of the 1901 Carnegie mansion in New York has been brought
up to 1990s code by James Stewart Polshek and Partners. The concrete
ramp which provides wheelchair access, conforms to the curve of the
planter strip and wrought-iron fence of the original plan. The immense
bronze doors are motorized to open with a gentle push.click here to see the photos and captions for this article A new show at New York's Cooper-Hewitt points to growing market for user-friendly products. Since 1901, when Andrew Carnegie moved into his newly built chateau in the wilds at Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, the mansion has reflected changing American ideas about design and what we value as a culture. Designed by Babb, Cook & Willard, the steel magnate's opulent 80-room home exemplified state-of-the-art technology in the service of comfort. Not only was it outfitted with sophisticated plumbing and heating systems but it also boasted other major innovations such as an internal steel structure and an elevator. In 1976, when the Carnegie home became the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, its libraries, billiard rooms, and quaint sitting areas were transformed into exhibition galleries, curatorial offices, and conservation laboratories by the New York architecture firm Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer. That process involved a comprehensive investigation into adaptive reuse--the strategy of revamping historically significant buildings to serve contemporary functions in economical and energy-efficient ways. Innovations of a different sort marked the museum's most recent renovation. Between 1995 and 1997, the New York--based architecture firm James Stewart Polshek and Partners connected the mansion to a neighboring town house and apartment building, making room for a new Design Resource Center, which houses study spaces and storage for some 80,000 items in the museum's collection of wallcoverings, textiles, applied arts, and industrial design. But this particular renovation project was more than an expansion of the Cooper-Hewitt's facilities; it also represented an expansion of its social concerns, as set forth by Dianne Pilgrim, the museum's director. Pilgrim, who uses a wheelchair and is a strong advocate of civil rights (especially as they relate to the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act), sought to make this federal building a showcase for how a grand turn-of-the-century house might become open to all. The ADA mandates that all new or renovated offices, apartments, and public spaces must be made accessible for the estimated 43 million Americans with permanent disabilities. In a broader sense, the law also facilitates access for the aging and those with temporary difficulties in getting around, whether because of illness, accident, or natural life-cycle changes such as pregnancy (which shifts a woman's center of gravity) or the need to transport tots in strollers. It seems fitting that the National Design Museum, an institution devoted exclusively to design, should investigate how such access might be achieved with practicality, ingenuity, and grace. "We don't think providing access to historic buildings is necessarily anathema to the character of these structures," says Tyler Donaldson, one of the architects who worked on the renovation. Today, with the help of a new mechanical assistance system (an electric motor, in fact), the Cooper-Hewitt's immense bronze doors open with a gentle push. Elevators connect every level of the museum's interior while ramps lead to the front door and from the back door to the garden. All these alterations were carried out in a manner consistent with the museum's historic architecture and interior design. But Donaldson admits that "[providing access] often poses difficult design challenges. One of the most important things we had to do here was to create barrier-free public entry at the main door, which was both the face of the museum and the face of the mansion." The architects' solution? They designed a concrete ramp that conforms to the curve of the planter strip and wrought-iron fence of the Babb, Cook & Willard plan. And while constructing the ramp required the relocation of two posts, the addition nevertheless looks like an exterior landscaping feature that could easily be original to the building. This commitment to access is taken a step further by a current exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt. On view through March 21, 1999, "Unlimited by Design" showcases post-ADA products that address the needs and abilities of a wide variety of demographic groups. "This is not a show about the disabled," notes Donald Albrecht, architect and project director for the exhibition. Rather, it catalogues the efforts of designers who have produced a dazzling array of objects, appliances, packaging, and environments that anticipate the needs of the aging baby boom generation. Universal design, as this all-inclusive approach to design is often called, celebrates ways in which the material world can better meet the physical needs of all users, regardless of ability or mobility. The curators, Bruce Hannah, professor of art and design at Pratt Institute, and George Covington, attorney, journalist, and former special advisor on disability issues to Vice President Dan Quayle (who championed the ADA legislation), have assembled some 150 objects for the kitchen, the bath, the home office, the garden, and the children's play area, creating a kind of house tour. They have also included accessible technology, such as keyboards, software, desk accessories, and workstations, as well as signage, guide rails, iconography, and other wayfinding means. Their choices were based on criteria that happen to spell design: Demographics, Economics, Sensory qualities, Intelligibility, Generational range, and Navigability. The exhibition's display strategies underscore the fact that design solutions often lie in simple, everyday materials. For instance, a shower curtain serves as a backdrop for bath fixtures, while cargo netting contains a variety of balls in the children's play area. "We tried not to build a lot of boxes," says Hannah. At every turn, viewers are invited to touch and test the products on display. What, for instance, is the most efficient way to open doors? Which of three faucet designs is best for your particular grip? Ward Schumacher, an illustrator of children's books, set out to capture the spirit behind the displays. His drawings, which hang in each gallery, have a lighthearted and lively style that conveys a sense of animation and fun. Hannah explains that in order to demonstrate how diverse the users of these products are, the artist was asked to "draw tall people, thin people, fat people, all kinds of people--which you can't really do technically--images that are big and playful and set the stage." Likewise, Tim Kucynda's ergonomic drawings, at once practical and whimsical, reveal how the various objects and devices work. The highlights of this unique house tour include a prototype for the "universal kitchen," on exhibit for the first time. Designed between 1993 and 1998, the universal kitchen is the product of a research and design program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Under the guidance of project director Jane Langmuir, the interdisciplinary team of more than 100 industrial design, architecture, and interior architecture students reconsidered and redefined the conventional standards of the American kitchen, "to meet the needs of the full range of kitchen users," as their mission states. It continues: "Back [in the Forties], Mom was the only person expected to be in the kitchen. So the kitchen was standardized for a 5 ft. 6 in. tall woman, probably between 25 and 40 years old. All the components were fixed in place, much of the time out of reach. These days Mom isn't the only one in the kitchen. And cooking isn't the only activity. Kitchens have become the center of family life." Employing time and motion studies, the designers tested users of different ages and abilities to establish the limits of comfortable reach, only to realize that everyone's comfort zone is different. To meet all possible needs, the RISD group designed the kitchen around adjustablility, interchangeability, and convertibility. A movable cart with an adjustable surface height, for example, can be used to store, prepare, and serve food. The oven has been relocated to the countertop, eliminating the need to lift heavy turkey roasters and baking pans. The new standards also take into account our changing eating habits. RISD researchers discovered, for example, that the most common American meal is leftovers, so their kitchen features a "snack center" where such meals can be quickly assembled. In addition, the students determined that whereas it takes about 400 steps to prepare a spaghetti dinner, complete with bread and salad, in a traditional kitchen, the universally designed kitchen requires a mere 100, indicating that the new standards maximize efficiency and conserve human energy. The other room of the house that has fixtures--the bathroom--was designed by Design Continuum in Boston. Their "MetaForm Personal Hygiene System" may sound a touch clinical, but it has a lot of user-friendly features: a shower node with seating, ventilation, pre-set water temperatures, lighting, and a communication and emergency system; an adjustable-height toilet that can also be closed and folded out of the way for especially small bathrooms; a sink unit outfitted with lighting, a mirrored cabinet, and electrical outlets that can be elevated and lowered at the flick of a switch. This bathroom, observes Tanya Van Cott, a designer who worked on the exhibition, is "a mainstream object, for families with multi-age kids. It's for three- and four-year-olds who need to learn how to brush their teeth as much as it is for wheelchair users." In addition to these service-oriented rooms, the vast archive of ingenious, efficient products on display suggests that universal design is not only democratic; some of it is beautiful and poetic too. Consider the shape-memory scissors designed in 1997 by Naoyoshi Machida for Ukai-Riki/Gisu Seki Cutlery Industry Association. When heated, their polyurethane handles conform to the shape of your hand; once cooled, their shape is fixed. Or the translucent, fluorescent-colored rubber razors by HOK2, which are easy to grip and have suction cups that attach to the shower wall. Or the illuminated doorbells, manufactured by Spore in Seattle, which, with both light and the enhanced tactility of soft polymer resin buttons, invite use. As Albrecht points out, whenever possible, universally designed objects give more than one signal of how they are to be used. (Another fundamental principle of universal design is demonstrated by Smart Design's ingenious rotary cheese grater for Good Grips: users intuitively understand its function.) Pragmatism and poetry converge throughout the exhibition, underscoring that universally designed products should be both practical and pleasurable for all users. "The need for beauty is a universal desire that is essential to the practice of universal design," explains Pilgrim. "As the museum moves into its second century, this humanistic design philosophy is our brand of futurism." The show definitely speaks to the future. What's missing from "Unlimited by Design," though, are historical objects. While designers working since 1991 have clearly produced an impressive inventory of household products, it would have been instructive to see their work alongside inspirational pre-ADA designs that have always shown an understanding of inclusiveness and flexibility. For instance, why not display the daybed designed in 1950 by the Italian studio B.B.P.R., with a movable frame of metal tubes and wood supporting a polyfoam mattress that can be angled in a variety of positions, all of them sculptural, comfortable, and practicable? Or the lightweight, stackable pine stools designed in 1962 by Danish designer Nanna Ditzel that can function as small tables? Or images of Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 Guggenheim Museum, where the ramps engage kids as easily as they make the space accessible to all users? Without calling their creations universal design, all of these designers recognized its essential condition. |
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