Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the office tower...

....here comes "fitness architecture"--buildings designed to make you climb stairs and walk long distances between the front door and your destination. The Wall Street Journal raved in November about a building under construction at Virginia Commonwealth University:

the elevators will be especially slow-moving. They will also be tucked away at the rear, while the atrium will feature a prominent set of stairs -- 28 to get to the second floor, and a total of 76 to get all the way up to the fourth floor.

Fear not--a "slimming mirror" will greet stairclimbers, to encourage them in their efforts to get fit. (Will they also put "fattening mirrors" in the elevators? Or just stamp "lazy" on the foreheads of elevator users?) It's probably a dream come true if you're a corporation trying to save money on construction--but look, it's also a benevolent idea, to improve the environment and public health: "in buildings that aren't hospitals, hide the lifts," recommends blogger Natalie Bennett. Oh, I see, it's progressive, and for public health--haven't people with disabilities paid disproportionately into that cause already (with institutionalization, dubious medical treatments, immigration restrictions, marriage restrictions, sterilization, etc. etc. etc. for the "greater good")?

So, if you're going to meet your lawyer, buy some shoes, vote, eat in a restaurant---plan to be fit, or get fit. But if you're on wheels....or have any other condition that make stairs impossible or risky....well, there's those "special" elevators way back there, behind the atrium--but give yourself an extra ten or fifteen minutes, they're really slow.

[T-shirt from Dan Wilkins' The Nth Degree.]

UPDATE 3/19: Bennett has this further clarification in her comments space: "I accept for some people with disabilities that would be inconvenient - those for whom walking a very short distance is possible but longer distances aren't - but that would, I think, be a not unreasonable price to pay for better overall societal and environmental health." It is an unreasonable price (and she seems to be under the mistaken impression that once you're on wheels, all distances are equal), but more to the point, does Bennett have the right to accept that price on behalf of the people who will pay it? People with disabilities and their allies should be very concerned when both the Wall Street Journal and a Green Party member can agree to accept their exclusion from any public spaces.

UPDATE 1/3/07: She's still at it. Some folks will never see the problem with building exclusion into the architecture of everyday life.