The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center was designed to offer full accessibility to visitors with disabilities. The facility breaks new ground in some areas, such as the combined usage of Talking Signs® (a way-finding system) and Acoustiguide (an audio interpretive device). This first-time pairing of advanced technologies allows visually impaired individuals to fully experience the Museum and Research Center on their own.
"From the very beginning of the project, the Tribe was committed to ensuring that all visitors, whether hearing or sight impaired or in wheelchairs, could have a similar experience," said Theresa H. Bell, Executive Director. "Wherever there are stairs, for example, there will be a ramp system or an elevator with a capacity for two wheelchairs. In addition, indoor and outdoor pathways are designed to accommodate not only wheelchair-users but also people with canes or seeing-eye dogs."
Throughout the design stage of the project, both the exhibit design firm, Design Division, Inc., and the Museum and Research Center staff consulted with experts on accessibility, and used focus groups to test some of the features being considered to accommodate people with disabilities.
"We quickly learned that there is no universal methodology to interpreting exhibits for the visually impaired," said Michael A. Hanke, Principal of Design Division, Inc. "Only 50 percent of all visually impaired individuals read Braille, while a person blind since birth approaches an exhibit differently from a person who lost his or her sight later in life. By providing a variety of different experiences, such as a wide array of touchable artifacts on handrails and multi-sensory environments, we are going beyond the traditional approaches and reaching the widest audience possible." Elga Joffee, Director of the Information Center of the American Foundation for the Blind, added, "This is the only project that I'm aware of where the needs and interests of blind and visually impaired people have been sought out during the design phase."
Other accessibility features include the following:
Closed captioning of all 13 films
Infrared Assistive Listening Devices for the auditorium
Replica artifacts available for touch
Exhibit display panels positioned for comfortable viewing from a wheelchair
Information in both visual and audible forms available throughout the exhibits
Ticketing facility accessible to wheelchair visitors
Telephones accessible to the blind, deaf, and those in wheelchairs
A raised-line map of the facility with Braille
High-contrast, large-type signs, and large-print informational materials about the Museum and Research Center
Braille, audio and visual alert systems for elevators
ADA education and training for staff
"Making the building accessible to all users was one of the primary goals of the project," says Project Architect Don Weinreich of Polshek and Partners, who noted that the facility exceeds ADA standards. "The Tribe insisted that all design features in the building and in the exhibits afford visitors with disabilities as full an experience as possible, and, in as many cases as possible, the same experience as that of any other visitor."
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