Disability Futures

Recently, in December 2015, the Mary Free Bed YMCA in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, became the first building in world to receive formal GUDC Certification. Michael Perry served as the project’s lead architect, along with a team of architects, engineers and designers who worked closely with the GUDC. The new YMCA is a model for community, recreational, and rehabilitation facilities, and was designed to be an inclusive environment for people of all abilities. 

Among its UD features, the new YMCA includes expanded accessible parking for bicycles, scooters and hand cycles, wider walking paths, hard surface viewing areas for wheelchairs of outdoor fields, oversized elevator cars with horizontal call buttons with braille, and a boldcoloured UD feature ramp for primary vertical circulation. Colour schemes and lighting also provide cues to people with all types of visual ability. The buildings wayfinding system is UD designed along with its acoustic techniques such as sound dampening and sound-absorbing ceiling bubbles. The facility locker rooms have ergonomically designed equipment, and there are zero-entry roll-in showers and pull-down benches, self-operated transfer stations at the swimming pools, and wheelchair softball fields. There is not a single step throughout the 120.000 square feet building on its thirty-six-acre campus. 

At its best, UD facilitates equal participation in society by all.

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