The principle of the Ramp House was to design and build a family home for a little girl who is a wheelchair user, where the whole house enables her to lead a barrier free included life. In the McMillan Families’ own home, they were able to design a fully inclusive place; using a ramp to access all levels, provides an equality of space to all. The couple designed spaces along the ramp, connecting both horizontally and vertically, so that the experience of the house changes as it unfolds.
The design of this house has made a difference to the whole families’ everyday life: for a child who cannot move around independently, the connectivity of the spaces becomes all the more important. ‘If Greta is in the living room, there are six different spaces that we can be in and move between, and she is still able to see and hear us, and communicate with us’. Because of the articulation of the different spaces within the open plan, there are many opportunities for privacy and seclusion whilst still being part of the life of the house.
The McMillan family felt it was important that their home should be a place belonging to the children as well as to Thea and Ian; to ensure this they included the children in the design process; to enable this process they worked mainly with models helping the children to understand how spaces might feel and how they might connect.
It has been crucial to the family that they remain in the centre of the community where Greta was born; ‘building this house here has enabled her to remain a loved part of Portobello. Our accessible family home allows her friends to come and play in a built environment designed to enable her to play just like any other eight year old’. The wider impact of an inclusive house like this, is that people who come to visit the McMillan family experience a different way of moving around a house, and understand that accessibility does not need to be about constrictions, but can be a delight.