Interview with Susan Goltsman
Why do we need this book now?
We’re spending money on our physical environment, but we’re still not dealing with some of the central issues that have to be handled as a result of creating prosperity for some and not for others. Cities that are counting on a new influx of people who want to live downtown have forgotten about children. Cities are often too expensive, they don’t have enough parks, and they’re struggling with inadequate schools. Because of what’s been built in our cities and the way it’s been built, we’re becoming more economically and age segregated.
So we need to move beyond New Urbanism?
New Urbanism is a style, just like the International Style of the ’20s and ’30s. Only now, we’re often getting the New Urbanist style without a sense of place: it’s just a template that’s being stamped out like an assembly line. True, it’s better than the suburban look it replaced—at least it’s focused on increased densification—but if I’m going to Louisville, Kentucky, I want it to look like Louisville, Kentucky. I don’t want it to look like Brea, California. Why should they look identical? There’s no sense of place and, despite the design, no real sense of community.
I just went to the newly developed area in downtown Denver. They have lovely townhouses and big beautiful buildings in the New Urbanist style. Then I went to the children’s play area and there wasn’t a damn place for an adult to sit. Adults want to sit nearby and watch their children. But they’ve made it uncomfortable for parents to spend time there or for a community group to hang out there, even though this is their only backyard. Plus, you have to be wealthy to live there. I just don’t believe that this development, called New Urbanist, is really building community.
Is better design the answer?
We must go deeper than design and beyond planning. Design is just the element that makes the built environment work—that gives it physical comfort. We need to think of our environment as a reflection of who we are. I find that there are very few places in most communities today, certainly in the newly designed downtowns, that allow you to really feel like you’re part of it.
You are personally recognized as a champion for disabled access.
Access for all, what’s known as universal design, is an approach to planning started in the 1960s by Ron Mace, an architect with a disability. He believed that built environments should be used by everyone. With help from groups such as Independent Living, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the early 1990s to support that approach. But you can still meet the letter of the ADA law and not have true universal design.
To me, universal design is seamless design that is friendly and inclusive of everyone who uses that space: those with disabilities, young children, seniors, moms pushing baby carriages. It doesn’t mean that everyone who uses the space uses it in the same way. It means that there’s some way to design the space so that it both accommodates the widest range of abilities and is also flexible enough for anyone to use it.
Can you think of an example where you’ve achieved that?
In the city of Menlo Park we designed a park entry gate that had a big wind chime in it that acted as an audio cue to help the visually impaired orient themselves to the entrance, and it was also an element that was pleasant for all visitors to Flood Park. It involved thinking on a more creative level about how people use their senses to determine where they are.
How can we move beyond designing our cities according to a preconceived formula or template?
You begin by involving people directly in the development process, whether it’s people who are eventually going to live in a housing community, young children, seniors, parents, environmentalists—even the entire city. And you have to involve them in a meaningful way. The community has to know that their ideas and comments will be incorporated into the design. A lot of times, public involvement is done pro forma to meet a legal requirement or just to get the project built. I see it as a much deeper process, something you really have to work at. And because no two people see the world the same way, you never know what’s going to come out of it. That’s a little nerve-wracking for a lot of planners and designers, but it’s that kind of involvement that builds the community, that makes it truly inclusive.
Tell me about a couple of the projects you’ve worked on that embody your approach to inclusive design.
The Brookfield Zoo changed the way people are creating children’s zoos all around the United States. We worked very carefully with the zoo staff. Their goal is to teach people about wildlife and habitat conservation, and being good stewards of the earth. They have huge conservation programs but people aren’t aware of them—children certainly aren’t. To build stewardship, you have to build empathy in children. We worked with the zoo people for about a year coming up with a new model of how to design a children’s zoo whose whole purpose was to build empathy in children for the living world. It’s far beyond a petting zoo.
How did you achieve it?
We actually took most of the animals out of the children’s zoo; we left just a few animals like lemurs and birds. Instead of just petting animals, the kids become the zookeepers, zoo designers, animal vets—even the animals themselves. We developed a children’s museum adventure-play model. We have play leaders and zookeepers working together to interact with the children in a very hands-on way. We’ve been very successful in connecting the kids to the world around them.
So the biggest design challenge was changing the perception of the zoo staff?
All of our projects are about the education process between the client, the users and ourselves. It takes time to learn from one another and to come up with something that is totally unique for that project. As a result, no two designs are the same; they all grow out of the interaction between the people and the place we’re designing. That’s probably a hallmark of what we do and we push it as far as they’ll let us go. Sometimes that can be the greatest challenge.
Can you give me an example of a project where you had to do a lot of pushing?
Designing the Juvenile Dependency Court in Los Angeles involved a 30-person design committee and 12 separate user groups that had to be coordinated. It was a three-year process to get consensus and design, and another two years to build it.
A dependency court protects minors who have been abused—sometimes removing them from their family—with the ultimate goal of reuniting the families if possible. Our research showed that everything that was being done in the old building was having negative impacts on the kids. The children may have spent two hours on a bus and then had to wait in hallways for up to eight hours. There were no activities, no places to play or do schoolwork, just TV. And there was no privacy for what are often very sensitive discussions with the children.
We focused on the children. They need a place to de-stress, because they’re all stressed out when they get there. We designed a comfortable, colorful, 10,000-square-foot waiting area with play stations, places to eat, and both indoor and outdoor activities. We created small conference rooms so lawyers and advocates could carry on sensitive conversations with the kids in private. We had to take on the judges—who had always been at the top of the power structure—so the kids got the best view of the outside world. The judges ended up with the view of the parking structure. We had to take on the sheriff about the design of the jails for abusive parents in the basement. We even had to involve the unions to create an entirely new work classification of staff to watch the kids in the waiting area. Before that, the transportation workers who drove the buses had been watching them.
There were a lot of challenges and a lot of tradeoffs, but in the end the building was a great improvement on what the children had before, with all the services the children and family services needed right there in one location. Children can begin the healing process in this environment now.
How did that project affect you personally?
It was a very powerful project. It changed my life. I realized the power we have to make a difference, because whatever happens in that courtroom affects those children for the rest of their lives. They have to know that somebody cares about them. They shouldn’t be afraid of the court; it should be a place where they think they’re going to get some fairness and justice, that the court will take care of them as surrogate parents until their own parents can take care of them. That’s the way I looked at: I was given the responsibility to make sure that building did its job to help the children.
You’ve mentioned inadequate schools as an issue for cities. How can inclusive design help schools?
When school administrators start designing a new school they usually just think about the building. They’re constrained by the need to get the building done within a certain time frame, often a lack of vision and always money. But that’s not good enough. School administrators need to ask the question: is the school bigger than the building? Think beyond the building. Look at the site, the neighborhood and the community because a school encompasses and should reflect all those elements.
What’s happening with our schools is also happening in our cities: a spirituality of place that is being ignored in the planning and the design process.
What do you mean by “spirituality of place”?
Physical place is our container, but we’re connected with each other in a very deep way that we don’t always understand. Spirituality is really what people yearn for when they say they want community or connection. Our containers need to be supportive of us and help us keep that connection. What we’re doing in our cities today doesn’t get people to that connection. Inclusive design can.
Click here to download a pdf file of the Interview with Susan Goltsman.
Back to Press Room
