Designing New Locker Rooms

This is part 3 of an ongoing story. If you haven’t been following along you might want to start with Part 1 and Part 2 before continuing on here.

Changes to locker rooms and doors in the building

After the Y conducted feasibility studies and raised the capital through a building campaign, it was time to start designing the new addition. The two areas where I saw the greatest need as a wheelchair user were the locker rooms and the doors throughout the building.

The door situation was relatively cheap to resolve. All the doors within the Y now have automatic door openers.

The addition included an expansion of the fitness center and additional studio space. The brand new universal locker room is what excited me. Unfortunately, when you are dealing with an addition and not new construction, you are limited on where you can put a new locker room.

Access to the new and improved locker rooms

This addition was being added onto the back of the building. My concern was that anyone who is still ambulatory but disabled would have an extremely long walk to access the new universal locker room.

There was not enough money in the budget to rearrange the space within the existing building. I use a scooter full time so the extra “walk” was not going to affect me, but I was looking out for all types of disabilities.

During the design phase, we made a punch list of must-haves. We had enough space for about 100 lockers.

How the space was improved

We made areas of lockers that wouldn’t have any benches in front of them so that wheelchair access wasn’t an issue. Since the locker room is universal, we have 5 private changing stalls, with one being wheelchair accessible.

There are 6 private bathrooms, all equipped with a toilet, sink, and shower. Two of these private bathrooms are ADA.

The ADA bathrooms are very spacious. They include a raised toilet with grab bars. The sink will allow you to roll under.

The shower is a full roll-in shower. There is a built-in shower bench that is attached to the wall. The drain for the shower runs the full length of the shower where the shower area separates from the rest of the bathroom.

I particularly like this drain design. I have seen it in a few hotels recently. The drain does a nice job of collecting all of the water before it floods the rest of the bathroom.

There is an adjustable mount for the handheld shower. The shower controls are easily accessible from the shower bench.

Using this new space

The new universal locker room turned out great. The design is very wheelchair-friendly. There is an abundant amount of space to navigate in a wheelchair.

The new addition opened during COVID-19. Due to COVID, there weren’t as many people in the building. Coupled with the fact that this new locker room was in the back of the building, it was completely empty most days.

What is the biggest issue with these new accessible bathrooms in the new locker room? It’s when able-bodied people use them! Stay tuned for part 4 of my long story regarding accessible bathrooms.