Built Environment Featuring Village Works

What is Built Environment Accessibility?

Environments should be physically accessible to every one, no matter their abilities. Examples of built environment needs would be ramps instead of or along with stairs, elevators instead of or in addition to stairs, braille for all signage, accessible washrooms and much more. Built environment is hugely important and makes space accessible to all humans. Nova Scotia is currently working on the Built Environment Accessibility Standard: “The built environment accessibility standard is intended to prevent and remove barriers in the spaces where people live, work, learn and play across Nova Scotia.”

Village Works 

Descriptive video, podcast production, voice directing, album mastering. Have you heard of these things? I hadn’t either until our interview with Village Works Content Co! Sea Change CoLab interviewed Dave Anderson, President of Village Works, and got fantastic information about what they do as a company and how they’ve been advancing accessibility practices!

Village Works is a full service post-production company. So anything to do with sound, technology and art, they can do it! Some examples are: voice overs, audio mix, sound design, animation, video editing, colour correction, commercial production, voice classes, and the list goes on. 

Built Environment

Located in Halifax, NS, Village Works has recently moved to a new location where they have done a significant upgrade. They have created an entirely accessible main floor, which includes a vocal booth for voice-over recording. A picture suite, where they do editing, animation, and colour correction. A mixed theater, which is basically a little mini movie theatre that they use for mixing audio. As well as an accessible washroom. 

Why did they decide to do these upgrades?

It had been a plan since being in a classic 100-year-old house in Halifax, which included many staircases and inaccessible spaces. They had been encountering the issue of being unable to have voice-over actors come in and work due to the space being inaccessible to those with different mobility needs. An interesting fact about recording studios is that they usually float on rubber pucks for soundproofing! Unfortunately, it is not accessible for people with different mobility needs or chairs with wheels. 

What has been the impact of making these changes?

Dave Anderson says, “There is one story which I keep thinking about. One of the advertising agencies in the city came through, and they did have one of their employees who’s in a wheelchair, and the very first thing they said when they came into the studio was, “Wow, this is so amazing that this employee can finally come into a recording session”. Because for the years that he’s worked at the advertising agency, he’s never actually been able to go to recording sessions because quite often recording studios have a lot of steps and barriers.” Making spaces accessible benefits everyone. More room equals more happiness; that is our math!

Advice for other employers?

Dave says “just go for it!”. Anything that can be done, especially the built environment. “It’s the right thing to do. It does open up the door to entire populations that may otherwise not be accessible to your company or your business.” It is important to understand people of all abilities have something impactful to offer and you are closing yourself and your business off from amazing experiences and people! Dave also recommends looking into funding and grants from the government. There are lots of resources that can help financially when making these changes to your workplace or business. Click here to go to the Business Accessibility Grant Program.