Handicap Bathroom Design
Designing a bathroom for a person with disabilities takes a little forethought and planning but it can be done by anyone who has the competence and prior knowledge of what is required to set down everything that needs to be done before a single tile is laid or piece of furniture installed. This article takes a look at the simple steps involved in planning and designing a handicap bathroom from the ground up.
Getting Started
Before you do anything, you need to write down the requirements of the person who will be using the bathroom and list them all out so that they are clear about what is possible and what is not. You will have a limited space with which to work, so you have to make the most of what you have and compromise where necessary to get the best fit.
A good idea is to get hold of some brochures and calatogs to see what bathroom furniture, fixtures and fittings are available and their sizes, colors and features as well as price. Make a short list of the items you want and include some second choices as you will need to whittle the list down later.
Next, get some plain paper and make some rough sketches as to how you think you'd like the bathroom to look, sort of as if you were looking down from above. This will give you a rough idea of how you want it all to look and to enable you to plan out the floor space and where everything will go. You can make several sketches because you will need to refine it so that there is ample free floor space for getting around the room in a wheelchair as well as accessing each item of furniture.
The Floor Plan
Now its time to get serious and put things into the right perspective. Take some graph paper and a pencil and start designing. This can be an interesting lesson in planning, scale and placement because you will need to draw everything exactly to scale as it would be for real. You will need to know the measurements of each item of furniture and each facility, so go back through your list you made of these items to get their dimensions. This is where you will whittle down your wish list of fixture inclusions because some will not fit in the space you have.
It might help to get some sheets of tracing paper to overlay on the main grid drawing, so you can move furniture items around to get the best fit without constantly having to erase and redraw everything. You can then swap in and out different units and other items. Another thing to remember is that some fixtures will have to be placed where there are water inlets and waste outlets already installed. These should be parked clearly on your graph in their exact locations so you don't make any mistakes. There's nothing worse than going to fit a toilet only to find you were two inches out and it won't fit where you wanted it to go because you cannot move the waste pipe!
Always remember to keep the floor space as clear as possible because the user will need to be able to get their wheelchair in and out as well as navigate around the room to access each fixture as needed.
Height
Lastly, before you get ready to move on to the next stage, make another graph drawing from an elevation viewpoint, or how the room will look as if you were looking at it from the side. This is to get the height of the units and to draw in things like electric sockets, water inlets for faucets, mirror placements etc. You should probably draw a separate elevation facing each wall (four directions) to get an overall sight of where everything will go. Again, use tracing paper to place the units from their different views, ie front, side and back.
Ready to Move On
Once you have all the items drawn in on the graph, you are almost ready to start ordering your fixtures and planning the next stage, which is the construction phase. Well, that is outside the scope of this article, as we're only really concerned with the design stage here. Check back for further articles on handicap bathroom design and construction.
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