james007

New Member
May 2, 2016
1
0
1
Jembrana - Bali Wild West
Why do the architects, designers and constructors think that everyone who wants access to a building is a superbly fit mountaineer?
The width of stair treads and the height between the treads does not make "ease of use" sense, similarly the slope angle of many access ramps is comparable to a ski jump!
Elderly folks and others who have walking difficulties seem to be ignored by the owners of buildings and their architects, designers and constructors.
There are many restaurants, supermarkets, shops, government offices, banks that are on our "don't go there" list simply because of this access design failure.
In a number of cases there are not even handrails to offer some form of support for the climber.
Talking to the management at a number of these places usually brings a sweet smile and the traditional "sorry" and the even more traditional "lack of actions"!

James
 

Markit

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2007
9,317
1,110
113
Karangasem, Bali
Hey James welcome to the forum.

In my experience stairs are the most difficult part of the build/design process.

You unfortunately have to get from one floor to another and the damned stairs take about half the fecking room that you wanted to live/sit/work in so they come last in the design and you can see the results.

They are squeezed in somewhere as an after-thought.

My advise: eat local in warungs - they never have a second story or get a take-away.
 

ronb

Well-Known Member
Aug 14, 2007
2,241
56
48
Ubud, Bali
Steps up to an entrance then steps down again can be found at most temples and are also at entrances to home compounds. These "gates" are mentioned in the wiki article of Balinese temples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_temple ), but no details of steps - but there are nearly always steps. So part of the answer to your question is tied up with temple architecture.

So I guess it's a feature of Bali and we just need to adapt. I notice that older Balinese often have some difficulty walking, but somehow they manage to get in and out of their compounds, and upstairs in some cases. Some of them use walking sticks.

I smile when I see these entrance gates to home compounds where a concrete ramp has been added in the centre of the steps so that motorbikes can enter. Navigating these requires some skill.
 

Nydave

Member
Jun 4, 2015
412
26
18
I have been in construction all my life,and Markit is correct,its pretty much an after thought,but thet pretty much holds true to 90% of everything here,,in our western homes we are bound by codes for almost everything to do with construction,they can be hard to deal with but they work,thread width mriser height,overall width of the stairs and so on,there is a minimum and maximum that we have adhere to,but here im afraid there seems to be no such codes,its almost like they make it up as they go along,the wheelchair ramps are another item covered by codes,there is a store on Jalan Danau Poso in Sanur,that has an upstairs,everytime I went up it I almost broke my neck,to me it looks like they were pouring concrete for the steps and when they got close to the top the last 2 steps were made higher than all the rest,which throws everyone off balance,,

Then we have a house in Surabaya,we didn't build it we bought,our living room has one window that measures 2 feet wide by 4 feet high,thats it,at 7 am in the morning we have to use lights to see what we are doing,we have one room that when we go in there is no light switch visible, its behind the door,one plug in every room,and always on a wall where you don't want to install anything like a tv ,,I understand that several yrs ago they built houses with extremely high ceilings because they had no air conditioning,and they used to have all those ornate looking vents (holes ) up near te tops of the walls to allow for air,but this house id supposed to be western design ,we have air con,but we still have 10 high ceilings ,making it impossible to run the stairs from a to b in one go,so there is a turn around 3/4 ways up,,a complete waste of space,honestly most of the time I want to knock the dam thing,and start again,there is absolutely no thought put into design of anything in this country,