While there is a reasonable amount of door hardware that meets the legal requirements of the ADA it is often challenging to find artistic door handles that satisfy both the artistic and physical needs of any one client and their designer.
The Ergo collection derives its name from the adjective “ergonomic” being a design that is optimized for easy use in the workplace and when it was created, Martin Pierce developed a left and right knob and lever design with suitable cut outs and indentations that could be easily gripped by a left handed or right handed person. The style has evolved over time with modifications being made to slim down the lever for more universal comfort.
Though the Ergo series is ergonomic, not all pieces are ADA suitable. As we grow older our physical needs and challenges multiply but not in a homogeneous way so a generic approach to making hardware ADA compliant is no guarantee that the adapted hardware will work for all. Enter a skilled and sensitive designer versatile in specifying custom door hardware like Lambrino Christoff of Barton G Design. With Lambrino’ s input we recently re-designed our Ergo epic cabinet pull by scooping out the back to make a hollow that could easily be gripped using ones index and middle finger. See the image below showing the evolution of this piece, the middle picture shows the custom piece and the top and bottom pictures show the first and most recent cabinet pull in this collection.
For other designers we have modified our Ergo cabinet pull making the mounting posts taller thereby creating more space between the cabinet face and underside of the pull that can be gripped by several fingers together.