Australian Disabled Access Consultants and Weir Phillips Architects of Chippendale, NSW successfully negotiated with the NSW Heritage Buildings Trust to provide updated a wheelchair accessible unisex sanitary facility/toilet within the World Heritage listed Hyde Park Barracks restaurant building at Queens Square, Macquarie Street, Sydney CBD.
Australian Disabled Access Consultants at the instructions of the NSW Heritage Buildings Trust provided detailed design advice for the following parts of the restaurant building:
- the accessible wheelchair accessible toilet
- the internal hallway pathway of travel between the dining area and the accessible toilet
- a new electrically operated doorway between the dining area and the accessible toilet hallway.
The detailed design drawings were sensitively prepared by Weir Phillips Architects to ensure that the design solution did not visually detract from or have an architecturally insensitive impact on the building’s World Heritage listing while still complying with:
- the principles of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- the City of Sydney Access Development Control Plan 2004
- parts D3 and F2.4 of the Building Code of Australia and the Disability Access to Premises Standards 2010
- Australian Standards AS1428.1–2009 (General requirements for access – new building work).
Australian Disabled Access Consultants design advice required the following design issues to be complied with the design guidelines:
- accessible toilet room size, fit-out, clear opening doorway width and circulation area
- the hallway pathway of travel, width and height
- the electrically operated door – 850mm clear opening doorway width, clear glazed door leaf with 30% colour contrast full width line and doorway hand operated opening switches
- slip resistant floor surfaces.
Australian Disabled Access Consultants said, “Australian Disabled Access Consultants fully support the Australian Heritage Buildings Trust’s initiative to provide a wheelchair accessible unisex toilet within the World Heritage listed Hyde Park Barracks restaurant building at Queens Square, Macquarie Street, Sydney CBD to support the principles of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992."