From the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Michael Graves, the designer and architect who created the iconic Alessi teakettle, returns to Minneapolis to review the design of a new nonprofit rehabilitation center. Graves, who now uses a wheelchair as a result of a 2003 infection, has become an expert in the ways that design can help — or hinder — people with disabilities.

In articles and speaking engagements, Graves has consistently intoned against tables and sinks too low for wheelchair arms to slide under; shelves too deep to access stuff at the back; drawers, light switches and window-blind cords out of reach. He told the New York Times, “These are simple things. I’m not even talking about how ugly [the room] is.”

… He’s also looking for a developer and site in which he could design a residential community for both able-bodied and disabled people. “I have a son with learning disabilities, and his mother is worried about what will happen to him when she’s gone,” he explained. “If they could live in such a community, after she’d passed on, he could continue to live there with his friends.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 12:45 pm and is filed under accessibility, celebrities, design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.