Design Accessible Restroom

Accessible restrooms fail as plans, not as checklists. Every item on the list can be present and the room can still be unusable, because the clearances overlap each other and the door and the fixtures compete for the same floor. This lays the room out in the order that the constraints actually bind.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish the standard and the room

Ask, in one message:

1. Which standard applies, and is more than one in play? Quote or paste the sections for clear floor space, turning space, fixture clearances, grab bars, door manoeuvring and reach.
2. Single-user or multi-stall?
3. The room dimensions, structure and ceiling, with anything already fixed.
4. Where must the door be, which way can it swing, and is it in or out?
5. The fixtures required, from the count and from the programme.
6. Anything already committed: a chase location, a corridor wall, a window.

If no standard is quoted, stop. Say plainly that a layout produced without the text is a drawing that has not been checked against anything.

Step 2. Establish the overlap rule before placing anything

This is the step that decides the room. From the quoted text, state:

• Which clearances may overlap one another.
• Which may not.
• Whether the turning space may overlap the fixtures' clear floor spaces, and under what conditions.
• Whether the door swing may enter any of them.

Present as a table:

Clearance	May overlap	May not overlap	Source quoted

A room laid out on the assumption that everything may overlap will be too small by exactly the amount nobody noticed.

Step 3. Place in order of constraint, not in order of the checklist

Work in this order and say why each placement was forced:

1. Turning space. Largest single demand; it decides the room's shape.
2. The water closet and its clear floor space. Second most constrained, and its side approach fixes the wall it sits on.
3. Grab bars. They fix the walls behind and beside the water closet, which means they fix the structure and any chase.
4. The lavatory and its clear floor space and knee clearance. Knee clearance competes with the plumbing behind it.
5. The door and its manoeuvring clearance, both sides, plus what the swing consumes if it swings in.
6. Everything else: dispensers, mirrors, hooks, the mounted heights that come from reach ranges.

At each placement, name the dimension needed and leave it as a question. Do not fill it.

Step 4. Work the door against the floor it eats

The door gets its own step because it is the most common reason a room that passes on paper fails in use. Report:

• What the manoeuvring clearance is on each side, and what fixes it: swing direction, approach side, whether the door is latched or closer-equipped.
• Whether the swing enters any clear floor space, and whether the standard permits that here.
• What happens if the door has to swing out: does it obstruct the corridor, an egress path, or another door?
• Whether the room can be exited by someone who has transferred, which is a usability question the standard may not fully answer.

Step 5. Report what does not fit, and by how much

Element	Required (quoted)	Available in this room	Short by	Source

Then:

• The shortfalls, largest first, with what would resolve each: more room, a different door swing, a moved chase, a different fixture.
• Every dimension still open, counted.
• Whether the room is subject to more than one standard, and whether the stricter one was applied throughout or only in places.

Close with the standing limits: the standard was quoted rather than known, the scoping question was not addressed, and this is not accessibility review.

Step 6. Save, if asked

Ask whether to write the layout notes to a file and where.

Rules

• Never supply a dimension. Not a clearance, not a height, not a reach, not as a placeholder that looks like a number.
• Never choose the standard for the user, and never assume one standard when two may apply.
• Establish the overlap rule before placing anything.
• Place in order of constraint, and say what forced each placement.
• The door gets its own pass, every run.
• Report shortfalls as measurements against quoted requirements, never as a verdict on compliance.
• Quoting a clause found by web search is not quoting the standard. Search identifies which document governs; it does not verify its text.

Anti-patterns

• Working from a checklist of items rather than from overlapping clearances.
• Recalling a turning diameter or a grab bar height because the figure is familiar.
• Assuming the federal standard applies without asking about state, provincial or local ones.
• Placing the lavatory before the water closet, which produces a room that cannot be fixed later without moving a chase.
• Treating the door as trim to be resolved at the end.
• Declaring the room compliant. It is measured against what you quoted.
• Applying multi-stall rules to a single-user room, or the reverse.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.