Building a career

Architect David Bonnett didn’t worry about accessible design until he became disabled himself. Now he’s a leading expert on the subject

When I was young I was wonderfully oblivious to issues of access. I was much fitter and able to run around. If I fell, I bounced, and nothing much mattered. I had no expectation that the world needed to adapt to people’s needs; I accepted that everyone ought to adjust to the status quo.

In the late ’70s and ’80s government and local authorities started to challenge the way we’d been doing things in terms of design. Simply because I happened to be an architect and became disabled right at the time that things were changing, I became the focal point for the new thinking. My local authority was looking for someone to create accessible designs and I was quickly identified as someone who could take the subject up and develop it, both as a designer and a disabled person.

I rather fell into doing this. I had a certain amount of resistance initially because I didn’t want my disability to determine my career route. But I was heavily involved in housing design and there was this glaring problem for people who were being moved into flats with lots of stairs, or windows with high handles, and so on. It triggered me into a sense of engagement.

In the past, people put up with all sorts of inadequacy in buildings. Since then UK architecture has made huge progress. We now have policies and laws and although the changes are costly and slow and involve a lot of persuasion, I’m convinced that things are improving.

I’ve worked on public buildings including the Tate Modern and Kew Palace and Gardens. In fact I work on a lot of historic buildings and often you’ve got to be quite subtle about the changes you make. You can’t make a big statement about accessibility, you simply want someone to be able to enter a building, enjoy it and then leave without destroying the qualities they’ve come to see.

I’d like to be known for having a fair and balanced judgement on things. I’m not a campaigner but I get passionate about things in a positive way. I want to work on places of government: it’s all very well for the Government to insist on change in the industry, for small sectors that probably can’t afford it, but it needs to take the lead itself.

Right now we’re working on the Athletes’ Village for the 2012 Olympics, making accommodation accessible for Olympians and Paralympians. After the Olympics the area will turn into regular housing and we hope to set new standards, not only of design, but of process and expectation for the future.

• Dave Bonnett was talking to Cathy Reay

David Bonnett: Career Path

• 1976: Graduated in architecture at University of Newcastle upon Tyne
• 1980: Started work as local authority architect
• 1994: Research degree PhD from Oxford Brookes University on designing for people with disabilities
• 1994: Set up own practice, now David Bonnett Associates
• 1995 and subsequently: Participation on working parties, committees and judging panels