When an architect and engineer have humanity

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

[Capt. R. Hugh Kidnme]

If it's true that wIthout engineers, science is just philosophy........then without engineers, architecture is just sketching.

[J-BAR #18287]

I bet the contractor who built it had special words for both of them.

 

[Cypress Sun]

With that design, a lawyer won't be far behind.

[Alpo]

1 hour ago, J-BAR #18287 said:

I bet the contractor who built it had special words for both of them.

 

I was thinking, as a guy that used to do masonry and concrete work, that must have been a bitch to do.

[Alpo]

It makes sense. It gives wheelchairs a gentler slope.

 

But wheelchairs won't be able to use it. Skateboarders will claim it for their own, and then destroy it.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

I dunno Alpo, I'm not sure how comfortable a run-a-way wheelchair ride would be  ....   

[Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L]

Does not meet accessibility code for a ramp or stairs. But it is pretty neat.

[sassnetguy50]

1 minute ago, Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L said:

Does not meet accessibility code for a ramp or stairs. But it is pretty neat.

Depends on where it is.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

40 minutes ago, sassnetguy50 said:

Depends on where it is.

 N O W  T H A T  I S  A  W H E E L  C H A I R  R A M P!

[Whiskey Business]

More like an amusement park ride.

[watab kid]

12 hours ago, J-BAR #18287 said:

I bet the contractor who built it had special words for both of them.

 

as both an architect and a contractor over a lifetime i see the design intent and the forming complications - great challenge and a nice result , 

[Utah Bob #35998]

From this angle the ramp appears to exceed ADA specs but it’s hard to say.

[Pat Riot]

Don’t get me started on ADA compliance. An entire industry of “What if?” Idiots is now employed because of it. 
The premise is very admirable and when done properly and with some forethought it works well, but then you get the “What if” crowd going along with the public agency “C student” Architect that wants to get their name in the books and Engineers and Contractors have a nightmare on their hands. 
 

Years ago I saw an entire hillside ADA ramp leading out to a train station destroyed because it was .5 degrees off. It was 12.5 degrees on the incline versus the 12 degrees required. Lots of rework was done. 
In a meeting the “brain trust” that identified this anomaly had their briefcase out and wagging the “inclinometer” at the contractor stating “My gauges don’t lie!”

I asked to see it and went out and compared it to our gauge. His gauge was .5 degrees off. 

Our gauge was calibrated. His was not. What he had going for him was a big mouth and a penchant for stirring up crap. 
All that work destroyed and reworked because of a “C student“ Architect/Bureaucrat that found his niche in a public agency under the ADA Compliance group.  
 

Sorry… not sure why I went off on a tangent…

[Subdeacon Joe]

18 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

Years ago I saw an entire hillside ADA ramp leading out to a train station destroyed because it was .5 degrees off. It was 12.5 degrees on the incline versus the 12 degrees required.

 

Or a spot in a hallway is 1/8 of an inch narrow. 

We had to fight it when our parish built a new church.  The county tried to demand ramps up to the amvon and altar.  Took forever to get through to the planning commission that a person in a wheelchair could not serve and had no business being there.

 

Then had to convince them that it was still a church,  not an assembly hall, even though it didn't have pews.  And getva height variance because the Cross on the dome went about 18 inches into a migratory bird flyway. You can see the Cross that would supposedly block the flight path in this photo 

[Pat Riot]

12 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

Or a spot in a hallway is 1/8 of an inch narrow. 

We had to fight it when our parish built a new church.  The county tried to demand ramps up to the amvon and altar.  Took forever to get through to the planning commission that a person in a wheelchair could not serve and had no business being there.

 

Then had to convince them that it was still a church,  not an assembly hall, even though it didn't have pews.  And getva height variance because the Cross on the dome went about 18 inches into a migratory bird flyway. You can see the Cross that would supposedly block the flight path in this photo 

One thing I do is kill them with calibration. If someone measures a hall or opening and says it’s off even by a smidgen I make them show calibration docs and evidence of proper care for the measuring device. It works 50% of the time.  In other words 50% of the time the device is faulty, broken or out of calibration. 

[J-BAR #18287]

39 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

One thing I do is kill them with calibration. If someone measures a hall or opening and says it’s off even by a smidgen I make them show calibration docs and evidence of proper care for the measuring device. It works 50% of the time.  In other words 50% of the time the device is faulty, broken or out of calibration. 

I wonder if that would work on all those thermometers scattered around the world in remote places and floating in the ocean that say the earth is warming a fraction of a degree.  Thermometers in food processing plants are re- calibrated weekly.  Who is recalibrating all those global warming thermometers?

[Pat Riot]

3 minutes ago, J-BAR #18287 said:

I wonder if that would work on all those thermometers scattered around the world in remote places and floating in the ocean that say the earth is warming a fraction of a degree.  Thermometers in food processing plants are re- calibrated weekly.  Who is recalibrating all those global warming thermometers?

Excellent point!

[Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L]

4 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

Or a spot in a hallway is 1/8 of an inch narrow. 

We had to fight it when our parish built a new church.  The county tried to demand ramps up to the amvon and altar.  Took forever to get through to the planning commission that a person in a wheelchair could not serve and had no business being there.

 

Then had to convince them that it was still a church,  not an assembly hall, even though it didn't have pews.  And getva height variance because the Cross on the dome went about 18 inches into a migratory bird flyway. You can see the Cross that would supposedly block the flight path in this photo 

 

The adjacent trees are taller than the cross. 

[sassnetguy50]

6 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

Don’t get me started on ADA compliance. An entire industry of “What if?” Idiots is now employed because of it. 
The premise is very admirable and when done properly and with some forethought it works well, but then you get the “What if” crowd going along with the public agency “C student” Architect that wants to get their name in the books and Engineers and Contractors have a nightmare on their hands. 
 

Years ago I saw an entire hillside ADA ramp leading out to a train station destroyed because it was .5 degrees off. It was 12.5 degrees on the incline versus the 12 degrees required. Lots of rework was done. 
In a meeting the “brain trust” that identified this anomaly had their briefcase out and wagging the “inclinometer” at the contractor stating “My gauges don’t lie!”

I asked to see it and went out and compared it to our gauge. His gauge was .5 degrees off. 

Our gauge was calibrated. His was not. What he had going for him was a big mouth and a penchant for stirring up crap. 
All that work destroyed and reworked because of a “C student“ Architect/Bureaucrat that found his niche in a public agency under the ADA Compliance group.  
 

Sorry… not sure why I went off on a tangent…

12degrees up the length of a hillside?  That'd be a workout.

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

8 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

that a person in a wheelchair could not serve and had no business being there

So you're saying a disabled person isn't allowed to do what an able bodied person can do? Thats the whole premise of the ADA. what would your god say?

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

A 1/12 is the maximum slope allowed and it's required to have handrails on both sides. That allows the WC person to grab them to pull themselves up. That slope is impossible to grip the wheels and make it up. In America stairs are required to have intermediate handrails if the stairs exceed a certain width. These exceed that. Leads me to believe this is not in the USA.

[John Kloehr]

Also need a flat "rest" area every so many feet of ramp.

 

I do suspect the pic is not in the US, and if for ADA purposes (generically, not US law specifically), it predates at least our ADA.

 

But a more likely explanation from looking at it is for moving equipment/materials/supplies on some regular basis, maybe to get a lawn mower to an upper lawn or similar. Or a powered utility cart (thinking like a golf cart).

[Subdeacon Joe]

27 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

So you're saying a disabled person isn't allowed to do what an able bodied person can do? Thats the whole premise of the ADA. what would your god say?

 

If God wanted him to serve, God would heal him.    

Seriously, if they can't perform the physical functions of serving the Divine Liturgy, or as an acolyte physically assisting, they have no business behind the iconostasis.  

[John Kloehr]

1 minute ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

If God wanted him to serve, God would heal him.    

I just sprayed my keyboard and screen.

[Alpo]

33 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

So you're saying a disabled person isn't allowed to do what an able bodied person can do? Thats the whole premise of the ADA. what would your god say?

That's one of the stupider questions I've read on this board.

 

You think a blind guy - definitely disabled - should be able to get a job driving a bus - something an able-bodied person should be able to do?

[sassnetguy50]

To address the legality of this design.  I think this picture is of Robinson Square in Canada(the first of this design), designed around 1980.  It doesn't need to meet code because they have elevators for that.  It is steeper, around 1:8 or 8degrees (I don't recall which).  The designer wanted the ramp for people like his father who lost a leg in the war.  Clearly he was not in a manual chair himself.

 

There is a similar design on the Chicago river walk.  The ramp is built into the river theatre seating (think pyramids not walking stairs).  

[Seamus McGillicuddy]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

That's one of the stupider questions I've read on this board.

 

You think a blind guy - definitely disabled - should be able to get a job driving a bus - something an able-bodied person should be able to do?

You’d just need to make some “reasonable accommodations” like maybe a seeing eye dog preceding the bus. 
 

Regarding the second post, a Structural Engineer told me one time that “Architects draw nice pictures and then I’m supposed to make them stand up.”

 

Seamus

[watab kid]

12 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

Excellent point!

why would we want to recalibrate something that is giving them their desired results - dont they ignore the ones that are contrary to the predetermined graphic expectations ? 

besides dont you know that current science is by consensus ? we cannot get bogged down in this testing and retesting to "prove" a fact - it takes too long , and often refutes the hypothesis ................

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

5 hours ago, Alpo said:

You think a blind guy - definitely disabled - should be able to get a job driving a bus - something an able-bodied person should be able to do?

One of the most ignorant comments ever made. If a person in a wheelchair isn't allowed to perform the functions of an able bodied person then your god and the law have ignored the needs of the individual. Or the ability of the WC bound person to bring the word of your god to the many. There is no reason that someone who is WC bound can't have the same access as anyone else.

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

5 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

Seriously, if they can't perform the physical functions of serving the Divine Liturgy, or as an acolyte physically assisting, they have no business behind the iconostasis.  

Lawyers just love comments like this. You are denying the WC person the same rights as anyone else. The ADA attorneys would line up to sue you for that comment.

[Subdeacon Joe]

6 hours ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

Lawyers just love comments like this. You are denying the WC person the same rights as anyone else. The ADA attorneys would line up to sue you for that comment.

 

There is no "right" to become a priest.  Since that is the case, noone's rights are violated.

 

Laymen, wheel chair or not, have no business there unless directed by a bishop, priest, or deacon, has any business behind the iconostasis.  Even clergy, unless they are serving, getting things ready for a service, or cleaning, don't go there.  Women, except possibly for elderly widows who have a blessing from the priest to clean don't go into the Altar area.  
At baptisms of children, boys are taken in through the south deacons door, around the Altar, and out through the north deacons door.  Girls are held at the royal doors but not taken in.   

[Alpo]

Joe, I have decided that Ike is sitting in his boat, has the motor at dead slow, and has at least three lines hung over the stern.

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

4 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

There is no "right" to become a priest.  Since that is the case, noone's rights are violated.

So you're saying a handicapped person would never be "allowed" to become a priest!

When designing spaces we used to say the same thing. This or that would never have a handicapped person so why design the space to accomodate them? Then an eye surgeon showed up in a wheelchair.

I modernized a 100 year old church. One of the goals was to allow parishioners access into the church, 10 steps, and allow them access to the alter. When it was done and the community discovered "anyone" could come to service, the congregations and attendance grew.

Joe and Alpo I spent years trying to get people like you to understand that able bodied people don't rule the world. 

Alpo, what you're saying being in a slow boat, fishing implies someone is mentally challenged? I'd go back and read some of ridiculous questions you ask.

 

[Alpo]

27 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

Alpo, what you're saying being in a slow boat, fishing implies someone is mentally challenged? I'

No, actually I said you're trolling.