The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
At last – access to designer flair
ACONSUMER TRAVEL EXPERT
As this year’s award winners show, hotel design for guests with disabilities is getting more stylish nyone who has checked into a hotel and been allocated a bedroom adapted for a guest with disabilities will have had an insight into the issue. The utilitarian, bolted-on handrails, the ugly framework around the loo, the general sense of an environment more reminiscent of a hospital than a hotel room, risks undermining the sense of comfortable retreat which you expect when on holiday or a short break.
It’s easy to forget, too, that access problems are not restricted to those who have obvious disabilities – especially in a travel environment. Every week at Victoria Station in London I see travellers of all ages and capacities on their way to the Gatwick Express struggling to get their suitcases up the long flight of steps that leads from the Tube to the railway platform.
But it is in hotels, which need to be a home from home for all their guests, where the problems tend to be most critical. Legislation over the past couple of decades, especially in Europe, has ensured significant improvements in facilities and access provision, and many practical Joint winner Maher Hadid, right, of MnM Studio, with Robin Sheppard and Celia Thomas problems have been mitigated with lifts, rails, ramps and frames – but could they be better thought out? Could innovative design help minimise the problem of ugly bolt-on solutions? Are there more subtle life-enhancing solutions that would give guests with mobility issues or other difficulties the help they need?
It is a cause that Telegraph Travel is backing as part of our campaign for Safer, Fairer, Better travel in 2018 and a major step forward was made in the House of Lords this week with the announcement of the winners of the 2018 Bespoke Access Awards. The primary focus of the awards was for innovative architectural design or adaptation of hotels for people with disabilities. This year, the prize for both this category and the overall Celia Thomas prize of £20,000 was shared between two practices.
Of the joint winners, the most visually appealing and perhaps the most inventive solution was a radical rethinking of a hotel room by Dubaibased MnM Studio Architects. In this
design, the sleeping area and bathroom were located centrally in the room and linked by a circular path, with the corner spaces available for activities such as dressing, or reading and writing. The judges felt that the design “delivered a truly aspirational bedroom space utterly reimagined from the norm, combining a great sense of adventure with elegance and surprise.”
Integral to the design was a hoist fitted to a ceiling track, which was able to spin around the entire orbit of the room. As well as practical solutions, the architects also offered a creative approach to the interior design, with giant Braille lettering emblazoned on the head and dashboards. The concept was judged “disability elegant”, and praised for its combination of style and “good substance”.
The MnM Studio design would require rooms to be built or rebuilt from scratch – an excellent vision for future projects. But the judges were equally impressed by the second winning entry by the Italian Brighenti and D’Orsi partnership, which was aimed at improving the arrival process at hotel receptions and would be straightforward to implement. The solution involved installing touch points in lobby areas for three types of disability: wheelchair, partially sighted and deaf. The judges said these were so obviously needed in all arrival areas that none of the them could understand why the combination had not been put in place before. “Making the availability of these functions overt rather than pretending they are never required begets ‘disability confidence’ for staff and customers.”
All that is needed now is for the hotel industry to take notice, to recognise that innovative solutions – whether radical rethinks, or simple enhancements – could dramatically improve the experience their guests, whether or not they suffer from disabilities.
The judges for this year’s awards included Paralympic gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson; Stirling Prize-winning architect Alan Stanton; Tom Perry, head of the Cities Programme at the Design Council; and Graeme Whippy, disability specialist for Channel 4.