ADA Compliant Contemporary Grab Bars by JACLO®
NOTES
humanism
sustainability
local climate
Learning from Italy
Let us celebrate a unique place where design,
the environment, and humanism are firmly
rooted in culture and history.
Luxury Grab Bars Decorative Specialties
Shower Systems
Can a grab bar be both sleek, contemporary
and ADA compliant? It can be if it’s part of
the new Contemporary Grab Bars Series by
JACLO®. New styles including Contempo and
Cubix feature straight lines, square shaped
flanges and minimalist details. Even better, if
installed vertically in the shower they can be
fitted with an adjustable slider-cradle that allows
for the use of one of their several
innovative handshowers. JACLO
grab bars have been tested for
structural strength levels set by
ADA and ASTM standards and
are ADA compliant when properly
installed. Available in 18 standard
finishes as well as many custom
styles and finishes.
Dawn comes through the skylight as a dove-gray
patch of firmament. A bird awakens in a nearby tree
and greets this first, tentative light. In the distance
a cock crows, and a dog barks somewhere in the
valley. Leaves rustle, and a cool breeze ruffles the
lace curtains and washes over the white linen sheets
on my bed. As I drift back into a deep, restorative
sleep, I feel keenly connected to this blessed place
in the Tuscan hills. I’m on vacation in the middle of
a late-June heat wave, living in a farmhouse that’s
worlds away from the shimmering, scalding parking lot at the Florence airport where we landed just
a day ago.
Every year at this time, I come to these hills to
reconnect my body, soul, and mind to sky, land,
plants, and animals, but my strongest connections
are with the generations of smart and sensitive people who made this place the heaven on earth it is.
Their historic buildings and towns teach me something new each time I’m here—about capturing
breezes, natural cooling and shading, respect for the
existing terrain, and the rewards of working with
local materials. How is it, then, that American
architects who regularly make pilgrimages to Italy
have not learned these age-old basics of sustainable
building? How does all this intelligence get translated into faux-Florentine condos and soulless malls
with ersatz piazzas? Are we as a culture so desensitized to the world around us that we’re blind to what
we desperately need to know to build anything?
There’s a more urgent question we must ask: Can we
afford to hide behind our national bravado and cultural provincialism at a time when the built environ-
ment is the major contributor to global warming?
The wisdom of Italian design—celebrated worldwide for its awareness of local climates and building
history, its enthusiasm for invention, and its balanced view of technology—can be studied in this
issue, detailed in the stories we tell of Meyer
Pediatric Hospital, in the Florentine hills (“Hiding
in the Hill,” p. 130), and Renzo Piano’s California
Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco (“Green
Architecture’s Grand Experiment,” p. 109). The
keys to both of these breakthrough projects are the
connections they make between the world of nature
and human nature. At Meyer, the Tuscan sun
invades every nook and cranny of the children’s
hospital tucked into a lush hillside. At the Academy
of Sciences—designed to breathe without forced
mechanical air, just like my summer home, the
Tuscan farmhouse—visitors and workers alike can
experience the earth’s processes and feel that they
belong to something bigger, more powerful, more
varied and memorable than themselves.
As America rebuilds and readjusts for the 21st
century, we might do well to remember what the
Italians have known since the earliest Etruscan settlements: cultures thrive, survive, and grow when
they relate their buildings and cities to the sun,
wind, and terrain while employing invention and
technology—all in the service of supporting life.
—Susan S. Szenasy, sss@metropolismag.com
Top left, Pietro Savorelli/courtesy CSPE; top right, Tim Griffith/courtesy the California Academy of Sciences
Top left: The atrium at Meyer Pediatric Hospital, in
Florence, Italy. Top right: The rain forest at the California
Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco.
