Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I need what?

"Oh, you need a three-hundred-pound seat" the brisk female voice on the other end of the phone said after I had explained, as delicately as I could, and without embarrassing either of us, that ... well, let me put it this way, and without being overly euphemistic, both bodily functions could not take place at the same time within the aperture of the seat of the "beside commode" I'd been given when I left hospital. The aesthetic desecration of our Philippe Starck-designed toilet pot caused by this baldly utilitarian object, with its white tubular construction, grey plastic lid and splash guard, was of little consequence compared to the ease promised by its 21-inch-high seat - six inches higher than the one above which it hovered - a promise short-lived in the event, for the reason given above. If I understood that person correctly, this method of assessing the required dimensions of a toilet seat – by the weight of the user - was new to me and, it has got me wondering about what I know.


It is only at times like these, in my case a temporary disability, that it comes upon one that the beautiful rooms one has gone to great lengths to create come up short in one vital aspect - accessibility. I found that much of our furniture, except the bed, no longer worked for me – or rather, with me. Until this week, the fourth since surgery, there has been but one chair – one of a set of four Provençal dining chairs with arms we bought 25 years ago in France – that has been in any way hospitable to my condition. The chairs and sofa in the living room, the library and the bedroom, all by well-known designers and from reputable manufacturers were, variously, too deep, too low, too springy, or too soft - qualities which in normal times may be much appreciated. We got the decoration right, but what we forgot was to make the rooms usable in all sorts of conditions. So, for a month, I have perched like a petulant parson on a dining chair, surrounded by furniture I could not use, immensely thankful for the arms (in more ways than one) that surround and support me.

I sit now at my writing table, in another of those Provençal chairs, propped by a pillow at my back, and though this morning I heard from the surgeon that everything has gone brilliantly and I may drive and fly again, I'm still too wary of the other furniture to try and sit in it. Sit in all I shall, eventually, but the lesson has been learned - function is prime. It is the ergonomics, the universal user-friendliness informing the design of furniture that counts.


This morning I looked around at the surgeon's waiting room and thought again what a difference there is, generally speaking, between the residential side of the interior design profession and the contract side - not necessarily a difference that is universal but one that comes down fundamentally to the training either side receives.  There was so much space, though none wasted, for allowing free movement of wheelchairs, walking frames, and couples side-by-side supporting each other.

At home, when we remodeled, we got our openings – the doorways – right, in that I was able to get the wheelchair and, later, the walking-frame comfortably through them – not something that could be said of many houses around this nation. But where there is a registered architect, a licensed interior designer or an experienced interior decorator involved, there should be no problem with clearances or accessibility in residences, and there will be a universality of design - the rooms will not be hostile environments to those who are in any way, and however temporarily, physically challenged.


Drawings of chairs by Emilio Terry from an article written by Marie-France Boyer for The World of Interiors, November 1987.


18 comments:

  1. Outstanding, as it goes so obviously beyond rooms.

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  2. I thought you were going to write that you were having a "chaise percee" made! An Emilio Terry design would, no doubt, make one feel better just by looking at it. Although the design of the second chair is more my style, the first and third would be better models, with the fringe hiding the pot. I have one in storage that is Regence in style, but needs to be re-caned. I hope you are much better soon!

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  3. Laurent, thank you. Design is something I'm going to cover in the coming months - not the decorator/designer divide, more the principles that go beyond proportion, scale, etc.

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  4. The Devoted Classicist, thank you. I left the mental association with the chaise percee and the drawings by Terry to be made by the reader. I forbore from mentioning the accessory to the bedside commode, the portable basin with a lid, though my mind was occasionally occupied with images of close stools and servants carrying chamber pots as they scurry down back stairs with chamber pots.

    I think an Emilio Terry close stool or chaise perceee would be the most fun thing to enter a sick-room!

    I am doing very well, thank you. A clean bill of health from the surgeon and I may drive and, better yet, go to New York this weekend!

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  5. Sounds like you're getting a cabin fever cure this weekend by car or plane. We're cheering.

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  6. Thank you, Terry. Boy, do I need one! I still cannot walk terribly far but I can walk - and as far as I am concerned public transport has TAXI written all over it.

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  7. I remember this article as though it was yesterday ...stil have the magazine somewhere- I loved those chairs!

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  8. Modern Country Lady, thank you. I have WoI going back to 1983 and I remembered the chairs as being published in that decade - but that's as far as my memory went. I shall spend some time investigating your blog this evening. A breath of English air, if I may say so.

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  9. This made me laugh at loud! My husband is 6'5" with long legs and often achy knees (6'2" junior high boy with glasses should never have played quarterback!) and I am 5'5" and shrinking. However, we both find the taller toilet (ADA height) with the elongated bowl more comfortable than the standard issue. When I redid my small bath, I took out the tub and put in a walk in shower. I wanted to reuse a cart for my vanity and everyone said a vessel sink on a 34" tall cart was TOO TALL for a short girl. Well, it is not. No more bending over to brush teeth, wash face, etc. I am hoping "design for life" will create more beautiful products that willallow us to age with style and dignity and that most lovely sounding word: comfort.

    Hope you have a swell trip and that you take Manhattans!

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  10. Oh Blue, your sense of humor shines through! Do take care, and above all, find yourself a comfortable seat. . .

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  11. Home before dark, I've just realized I never acknowledged your comment - it's what a weekend in New York will do for one, this being forgetful. You and your husband are exactly the couple (in terms of height) I discuss with my classes when we do residential design. I make them consider universal design and aging in place but now I'll have far more experience to lay before their wondering brains. I stayed in a hotel at the weekend that was completely inaccessible for a wheelchair which was very surprising. I attempted to use the lobby restroom -that is until I saw the toilet pot hovering somewhere around ankle height! Some designer had gone for glamour and had but a tenuous relationship with practicality.

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  12. Janet, thank you! The world is becoming more comfortable but it is astonishingly uneven - steps and changes of level all over the place!

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  13. William Morris' oft quoted words "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" are a good mantra, but one which still falls short. Because one condition does not preclude the other, and your chairs are certainly of the latter and not the former.

    Best then, that all design is both useful, and beautiful, and why, oh why do we persist in producing stuff that is not both?

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  14. oh Blue, Blue, Blue.... I am so sorry. I hope you are on the mend and feeling better. Please say Yes!

    joan

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  15. Blue Fruit, thank you. As to why furniture is not more considered in terms of universal design is the subject of a discussion too big to take place in this comment box. I think, though, it will find its place in a later post. Again, thank you.

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  16. For the love of a house, thank you.

    Dear Joan, I am much mended - today I make my first car journey to work (65miles) - but still in need of some physical therapy. Compared to seven weeks ago I am a million times better and, most blessedly, pain-free!

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  17. I keep meaning to write and tell you how often I wish I'd been a student in your classes. So often.

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  18. victoria thorne, thank you. Had you said so earlier I would have made place for you! I think we might have enjoyed ourselves, don't you? As it is, the program closes at the end of the year.

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