The Red Ramp Project

The creative turn

A beach visit exposes a barrier that a glossy destination image can hide. Johnson Tiles and Soho Square's 2015 Red Ramp Project filmed a temporary ramp enabling wheelchair access at a Goa beach. A 2017 tactile-awareness continuation is grouped into the same family. The action made access visible, while the temporary duration raised an equally important question about what would remain afterward.

Editorial interpretation: the campaign connects a building material with the experience of moving through a place, shifting attention from appearance to participation. Its most interesting tension is between an event that can be filmed and an improvement that can be relied upon. Those are not interchangeable achievements. A compelling story can reveal a barrier and invite a response, but durable access depends on design, permission, maintenance and the people who use it. The transferable lesson is to make an overlooked exclusion concrete while designing the follow-through with at least as much care as the moment of visibility.

The accounts establish the intervention and continuation, not universal access, permanent availability or causal policy change. No effect on policy is attributed to the campaign, and no private participant histories are reproduced.

Begin with the journey rather than the product

An access problem becomes clearer when the audience understands what someone is trying to do and where the route breaks down. For an original public-event information brief, follow the steps from finding an entrance to locating a seat rather than starting with a list of facilities. Do not turn the person into a symbol of helplessness. Their goal and choices should lead the story. The product or service belongs only where it contributes to removing a specific barrier, and the account should remain clear about what it cannot resolve.

Treat the day after the event as part of the brief

A temporary demonstration can be useful, but its duration and maintenance plan must be explicit. Before planning publicity, identify who will own the next step, what approvals are needed and what the audience can reasonably expect after the event. For a fictional venue guide, that might mean assigning responsibility for updating access information when a route changes. A campaign that invites participation without a response process can leave people doing unpaid reporting work into an empty channel. Build the operational answer before asking for public contributions.

Invite participation without requiring personal disclosure

A useful contribution can concern a place or a missing piece of information without demanding someone's medical history or an emotional testimony. Offer a way to report a barrier in practical terms, with clear consent and a response expectation. For a small organisation, begin with a bounded review of its own materials rather than a public map it cannot maintain. Accessibility work should involve people with relevant lived expertise on fair terms, but participation must not require performing difficulty for the camera or representing everyone with similar access needs.

Try the mechanism on another brief

Proposed adaptation: audit the public-facing information for a fictional community exhibition using a paper visitor journey. Prepare two versions: a promotional page listing attractive features and a practical page explaining routes, available assistance, known limitations and a contact for questions. Invite consenting adults, including paid accessibility expertise where available, to identify what they would need to plan a visit. Do not simulate disability, build a ramp or collect health details. The exercise tests whether communication supports informed participation and whether the organiser has assigned an owner to every promised update.

Record missing journey information, unsupported accessibility claims and questions without a responsible recipient. Check that the page distinguishes confirmed provisions from proposed improvements. Positive reactions to an inclusive message do not establish that a venue is accessible or that a temporary intervention produces lasting change.

Stop if the exercise becomes a publicity story without a maintenance owner, asks for unnecessary personal disclosure or implies universal access. Narrow the promise and fix the response process first.