What’s the difference between Accessible (Disabled) And Ambulant Toilets Within Childcare Centres?

Table F2.4(a) ACCESSIBLE UNISEX SANITARY COMPARTMENTS

Class 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 — except for within a ward area of a Class 9a health-care building

Our Advice

A primary objective of the Premises Standard is to ensure that dignified and equitable access to buildings and facilities within buildings is provided for all people with a disability and this must include regard for children.

There are no concessions or exemptions provided in either the Premises Standards or the BCA in relation to the requirements for accessible or ambulant toilets in child care centres.

Therefore, when preparing or assessing a design for alterations or the construction of a new child care centre there must be consideration to the needs of children with a disability, including accessible car parking, access into the building and good access to all services and facilities within the building including toilets.

To satisfy the performance requirements of the Premises Standard and BCA a ‘deemed-to-satisfy’ solution can be adopted but will this meet the needs of the children or the centre?

As the Premises Standard and BCA are performance based we recommend that designers deviate from the ‘deemed-to-satisfy’ prescriptive approach to meeting the performance requirements and adopt an ‘Performance Solution’ to satisfy performance requirement FP2.1, which also meets the needs of the children and centre.

When proposing a ‘Performance Solution’ we take the approach to adopt the requirements of the BCA and AS1428.1 but apply the design guidelines of AS1428.3 Design for access and mobility – Requirements for children and adolescents with physical disabilities. We then assess the design against the performance requirements of FP2.1 to confirm the layout has been provided in a convenient location within or associated with a building, to the degree necessary, appropriate to—

(a)the function or use of the building; and

(b)the number and gender of the occupants; and

(c)the disability or other particular needs of the occupants

Provided below are documents that we believe can assist in the design of sanitary facilities suitable for use by children within childcare centres, while still achieving performance in accordance with FP2.1.

Accessible & Ambulant Toilet Layout

 

Download PDF layout

To download a PDF of the above layout click on accessible-and-ambulant-toilets-within-childcare-centres