misc. links

I have just started a new fellowship at the Lemelson Center for the History of Invention & Innovation at the National Museum of American History. It's great to work here, partly because there are a bunch of people working on a Disability History exhibition coming up in the fall (I think) - great because I don't meet a lot of people who work on disability history in my everyday academic life. One of the staff pointed me to this video - from the Disability Rights Commission in the UK - which shows some of the common accessibility issues people with disabilities face through an funny imagined scenario... watch the full version here in 2 parts.

- Remarkable profile of Roger Ebert from Esquire, describing in moving and non-sappy detail his life since he lost his voice.

- Interesting project: DesigNYC (founded by Ed Schlossberg, student of Buckminster Fuller as well as husband of Caroline Kennedy) pairs designers with social causes: examples include an "Eating Healthy in Bed-Stuy" booklet for Bed-Stuy Farm Share; a safer, brighter winter lighting plan for the Broadway commercial district (60th-135th); and several interior/community spaces, including one for a housing project for people w/ mental illness. Article at Design Observer.

- Kansas City Star remembers Paul Levy, activist for accessibility and director of non-profits including The Whole Person Inc., Kansas City; the Coalition for Independence; and Universal Design Housing Network

Dwell presents | The Bathroom Reinvented: Universal Design in Public Bathrooms | Part 1 | by Gary Nadeau from gary nadeau on Vimeo.

Nice video clip of Gary Nadeau (of Dwell magazine) visiting public bathrooms with Dan Formosa and Richard Whitehall of Smart Design (designers of, among other things, OXO Good Grips). They are a great odd couple on Universal Design.. Formosa gives the technical definition - its roots in barrier-free legislation - while Whitehall gives the larger meaning/context: Universal Design suggests the possibility of attending to human needs, including emotional, political, social.

Also maybe the best looking collection of people ever collected to expound on the experience of going to the bathroom.

playgrounds

Image from NY Times: a 5-year-old boy in a baseball cap sits in a wheelchair to the left of the frame. His mother holds his hand as he reaches for a bright green digger at a playground sandbox.


When I was in San Francisco recently, I was amazed at the huge and fun playground in Golden Gate Park-- there were so many different options there that would have been fun for a lot of different sizes/shapes-- in fact I had a hard time restraining myself (and didn't much) from playing on the spinning flower-shaped chairs or climbing the big rope spiderweb myself. I was thinking that the spacious rolling rubberized landscape was uncluttered enough that kids and parents with wheelchairs could get around, and there were options at different levels that would be fun for people with various impairments.

This NY Times article reports on how hard it is to fund accessible playgrounds, but that a few organizations have pulled it off in the Northeast (this is a regional article). The emphasis is on play spaces that can be used by everyone, and several parents quoted in the article mention the problem of going to playgrounds that are accessible only to some of their kids.
- Boundless Playgrounds has helped CT and NJ communities build playground with things like raised sandboxes so kids in wheelchairs can play and toys like the extended-arm shovel in the image.
- Miracle Fields is an organization that builds accessible baseball fields-- 4 in the NY region and more than 10 planned, says the article.