Challenge: A family has a young daughter with a developmental disability. For mobility outside of their home, the daughter is pushed in a manual wheelchair by one of her parents. Since their home was originally built on a steep lot, the front walkway has a series of steps at several points in its overall length. The walkway currently terminates at a recessed front porch that is also situated several steps above grade level.
In conjunction with planning for a new studio addition, the family has decided to construct a new accessible front porch. The porch will project from the face of the house and include a roof for protection from inclement weather. The new porch will also add visual prominence to the existing front door and will better balance the soon-to-be-expanded house facade. Functionally, the family also wants the new porch to make access easier for their daughter who, as she grows older, is becoming more and more difficult to carry up and down the existing steps.
Solution: As a part of the proposed project, the existing front walkway and front porch will be demolished. The landscaped area between the existing drive and the front door will be regraded. A new walkway is planned to extend further up the existing driveway in order to reduce the slope to be more accessible. The new porch will be larger, for more maneuvering room, and will accommodate a new ramp attached to the right side.
In order to make the route accessible, a loop in the walkway is added to the right side of the porch. This extra travel distance allows the combination of a new sloped walk and a new ramp to provide an accessible route up and on to the new porch.
In order to properly plan this project, a topographic plan was prepared from a survey of the house's driveway and front yard. This topographic plan allowed designers to accurately compute the regrading that is necessary to achieve an accessible route. Spot elevations will be included on the project construction plans to ensure that the new walkway slopes are both uniform and accessible.
The porch addition in this project will contribute functionally and aesthetically to the total project. In this case, the accessible porch will complement the new studio addition and, most importantly, allow the young daughter to more easily gain access to the home. From Paraplegia News, published by the Paralyzed Veterans of America PVA accepts no responsibility for any errors or omissions in the information published herein and does not endorse any company or any of the products or services advertised on this web site.
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