Ed Roberts Campus | An International Center for People with Disabilities

For those who are unfamiliar with Ed Roberts, he is considered the father of the disability rights movement. He helped make rights for people with disabilities a civil rights issue. Leading to laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). All while living most of his life with severe polio and having to use an iron lung. Yet still fell in love, married, and fathered a son. Without him and those like him, my job at a Center for Independent Living may not even exist. For more on his amazing life, read this brief bio.

This past April, the Ed Roberts Campus was opened in Berkley, CA in his honor. In case you didn’t read the bio (which you should), Ed Roberts was the first severely disabled student to attend the University of California Berkeley.  The organizers of the campus stated that they want the campus to be a place that is dedicated to fostering collaboration and improving the services and opportunities for people with disabilities locally and worldwide.

Now let’s look at some of the design aspects of the building. First, the building is connected to the BART mass transit system. making it accessible to more of the population. After entering the building you’ll notice is the “floating” spiral staircase. Partially suspended and with natural light coming from up above, it appears light and delicate. You may wonder why such a long ramp is being used. Well there are plenty of elevators in the building, but in case of emergency, the ramp also serves as a quick exit that can handle many people.

The elevators have something very neat that I’ve never come across before that you can see in the picture above. Near the floor is a big call button that can be used by wheelchair users. They just use their footrests to bump into and push he button. There are many more accessible features to the building that can be found in the design section of the Ed Roberts Campus website at http://edrobertscampus.org/design.php . Below is a video that highlights the campus.