Access Through Architecture: Miniature Golf
By Lopez, Carol Peredo, AIA; PN: Paraplegia News, Vol. 59, No. 8, pp. 46-47Publication Date: August 2005
Article discusses an accessible 18-hole miniature-golf course design, which was created in under 5 hours by Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Architecture in partnership with an architect from Florida’s Ibarra Collaborative International. The PVA-Ibarra team recognized that if only 50 percent of the course greens are accessible, as is mandated by the Americans With Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines, then people who use wheelchairs could play on half of the course while their partners could play on the other half. The team then decided to design a fully accessible course, which has a series of greens that gradually rise to ten feet above street level with short ramps and rising walks between greens. After players arrive at the midcourse green, the remaining greens are connected by longer ramps via a steeper downhill path. Another one of the course’s primary accessibility designs is that the ball does not come to rest on steep incline or at any other point of the course where it is not accessible. The architecture standards and guidelines in the state of Florida will incorporate the course as a conceptual model for further designs.
Published by: PVA Publications (Website:http://www.pvamagazines.com)
Paralyzed Veterans of America (Web Site: http://www.pva.org )
