How to Stop the Train After It's Left the Station: Diary of the Construction of a BridgeShirley Confino-Rehder, affil. AIA, Certified Interior Designer (CID), President, Shirley Confino Interiors, USA
The design was beautiful. Much more than the city expected. But what do you expect when you hire one of the best of the best. Overwhelmed by the ability to enlist one of the greats in architecture to agree to do a structure in their city for everyone to see might have blurred the vision of the reality. The contract was signed, the construction started. What happened? Yes, there were some people that were petitioning the bridge and its design. But it didn't matter. The city lost several opportunities to have buildings by Wright and other greats. They were not going to lose this chance. Do these people realize what a bridge built by Santiago Calatrava, which will span over the Grand Canal, would mean to a city like Venice? Well, did the decision makers realize what it meant to people not to be able to cross the bridge? Not just the Venetians, but also all that visits this city every day of every year. Whose bridge is it anyway? A petition protesting the design of the pedestrian bridge, written by a group of advocates whose life work was accessibility for all, and signed by some of the best architects and engineers in Italy, remained dormant until a spark of life caused by a change in the message to the decision makers of Venice, changed the attention paid to the protest. This multi-media presentation will walk through the original design, the site, the petition, and the result of the negotiations. This is a story of how the dream of a city, a city that is a dream in itself, the creativity of the brilliant architect and the needs of all people will merge into a structure that will be an inspiration for future generations. When completed it will be a perfect example of Universal Design for all to experience. This merger was more difficult than was needed to be. It is the presenter's feeling that there is no negotiation for accessibility. But, in the real world there is always a need to negotiate to get the right result when ego, and attitude, overlook law and good decision. The insight of how the approach for changes was made using community effort, proper language and common sense, can serve as a model for future negotiations. The final design will prove that Universal Design concepts can satisfy the creativity of the designer, achieve a structure any city would be proud to have, and attend to the needs of every one. The architect from Milan, Italy, Paola Bucciarelli of the HBGroup, will review Italian law for accessibility, the petition that her organization helped write, and in her own words describe the manner of it all. An unswerving advocate of accessibility, she will discuss the initial actions that were taken, and the frustrations experienced in attempting to enlist people to assist in this protest against a pedestrian bridge, a bridge that was designed without regard for law or for people who would find it difficult or impossible, to traverse a bridge designed with 108 glass steps. The presenter, Shirley Confino-Rehder, a certified designer and mediator from the United States, and a passionate advocate of the Americans With Disabilities Act and Universal Design, will describe how she used her knowledge of the law and design, and her abilities to negotiate to change the focus, while maintaining a sensitivity for the diversity of culture and interests that were part of the entire picture. She will demonstrate how changing the message can change the response. In this presentation, we will see the original designs and how their beauty masked the hidden flaws in the ability of everyone to use them. We will meet the group of advocates involved who unmasked the flaws and sounded the first alarm. The process of international communication by which the alarm quickly became a worldwide cry of protest will be described as well as the impact of the protest on the deliberations of the city and the architect. We will explore the various design solutions proposed by the original group of advocates, and the final result. Mrs. Confino-Rehder will present the method used for negotiations, the art of mediation, and the proper tools to bring to the table. The presentation will bring to the audience the art of listening, responding and compromise so that everyone can be a winner. The lessons we learned in achieving changes in the design of the new bridge in Venice have global implications. We have seen the power of the choice of words; no matter what in what language they are spoken, to transform a conflict into a common vision. We demonstrated that a global response could, at times, be more powerful than a strictly local one. Now everyone at this conference can concretely show something that we all know in our hearts, that accessibility is a humane, rather than a national, issue. It is now possible to think that we can influence the adoption of international standards and their inclusion in agreements among nations. |