The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Rooms with not a white grab-rail in sight
‘It’s a secret snobbery, I suppose,” says Robin Sheppard with a sigh. “And we’ve all done it – we’ve all turned up our noses at a disabled room. The general consumer is averse to the functionality of such options – because, these days, we all want high style. Our aim is to reverse that. We want to gaze through the other end of the telescope.”
As executive chairman of Bespoke Hotels, Sheppard is involved in the Bespoke Access Awards – a search for innovative ideas, fresh thinking and clever gadgets that will improve both the image and the user-friendliness of hotel rooms for people with disabilities. The best entry will be awarded a £20,000 prize, with the winner set to be announced at a ceremony to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities, in December (the deadline for entries is September 1).
“We are hoping entries will show a new slant on hotel access and egress, and on how a bedroom can work,” he continues. “These could be wash basins which go up and down, or adaptations which can make a disabled-friendly bathroom appeal to a wider audience.”
Sheppard is not the only brain behind a project which has drawn together parties as varied as the Royal Institute of British Architects and the House of Lords. But if he is passionate about the awards, it is with good reason. Eleven years ago he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes the immune system to turn on itself, sparking progressive muscle weakness which can lead to complete incapacitation. “I was paralysed from the neck down,” he says. And while he has since made a substantial recovery, the experience has left him with a rare perspective.
“I have been on the inside of disability,” he says. “I have
A competition aims to make disabled-access hotels less clinical.
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access. bespokehotels. com; architecture.com/ RIBA/competitions experienced it as a consumer. Getting back to a life where I could look forward to any sort of outing, took a long time. Your confidence is stuck in the lost-and-found tray, you are ashamed of your mobility skills, and you don’t want to embarrass the people with you.”
“This is a design competition in three areas – architecture, products and services,” adds Paul Vaughan, project director of the awards. “Hotels tend to tick boxes, saying that they have opened the right number of rooms that are compliant with the DDA [the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act] but they don’t think about how they look or how they feel. We want ideas which move away from white grab-rails that seem like they belong in a hospital.”
Bespoke Hotels has already made strides in this area. The Chester Grosvenor – part of a company portfolio – has undergone a recent renovation which, in Sheppard’s words, “has made bedrooms, bathrooms and disabled-access rooms as seamless as possible”. The Hotel Gotham, Manchester (a conversion of a Grade II listed bank) has made its disabled-access rooms as stylish as any part of the property.
“I would like to see a situation where people regard being given a disabled room as an upgrade,” Sheppard adds. “I would like to think that, in five years’ time, the awards will not only have achieved their aim, but will also be a small part of a much bigger success story.”