In 1980, Ralf Hotchkiss set up a global network of wheelchair designers that in 1989 became Whirlwind Wheelchair International. His aim is to share ideas for cheap, sturdy and easily repairable wheelchairs that can survive the difficult terrain of developing countries. The organisation has trained around 500 people from 40 countries. The Whirlwind design is now used by more than 25,000 people.
What was it like the first time you used a wheelchair?
My first wheelchair was an old hospital chair. I got half a block from the hospital before it hit a big crack in the sidewalk and the front wheel assembly was destroyed beyond repair. Many westerners are still distributing those same chairs in the unpaved developing world and expecting them to stand up. They are unstable, unsafe and heavy when used there. What鈥檚 more, they cannot be repaired with local materials.
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Is that when you thought there was room for improvement?
After that incident I started working on wheelchair design as a hobby. First of all, I looked for help to make my own chair better, but around the US and Europe I found very few wheelchair designers, largely because there was a monopoly in place that was squashing the small manufacturers. But in the developing world, I found people had already solved most of the problems. I met four teenagers in Nicaragua in 1980 who showed me a chair they had built. They looked at my fancy four-wheel-drive chair and said: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 very interesting and it looks a lot of fun, but it鈥檚 going to break there, there and there.鈥� They were absolutely right. They knew more than the western engineers.
Why are manufacturers in developing countries more innovative?
Necessity. The difference is that they are using their chairs daily on unpaved roads. In the west, chairs only have to get from the parking lot to the building. The guys in Nicaragua were going several kilometres to and from school. They were thinking very hard about all the problems wheelchair users face every day and so created new developments at a faster rate than all of us in the west put together.
What are the essential things to consider when you are designing a wheelchair?
Weight and cost are crucial. The chair I鈥檓 sitting in now, which is one of our Whirlwind designs, weighs 12.5 kilograms and costs between $100 and $200, depending on where it is made. Compare that with a chair from a typical manufacturer in the west which weighs around 21 kilograms and costs $1000. Our newest chair is lighter than even the most expensive aluminium chairs, though ours is made using the cheapest steel tubing. This means the chair can be repaired easily by the local blacksmith with the same tubing that is used for restaurant chairs.
Our wheelchairs also fold, which is crucial if you are travelling on public transport. If you are going from town to town on buses in Africa or south-east Asia they will charge triple to take you and a non-folding chair.
The new Whirlwind chair also has a longer wheelbase than the older models so it can go down a much steeper slope without tipping over. Tipping forwards is the leading cause of injuries among wheelchair users. If an automobile had its centre of gravity as high as a wheelchair it would be three storeys tall 鈥� touch the brakes and over it goes.
How do you apply the design to different countries?
Our chairs are custom-made, like a good suit from a tailor. For example, most elevators in Russian buildings have a standard doorway 59 centimetres wide, but Russian wheelchairs were manufactured to a 66-centimetre standard width, so none of their chairs would fit. We designed a chair that could be temporarily squeezed. We used a horizontal folding parallelogram frame situated under the seat. You reach under and pull forward on the folding lever to reduce the width partially, while you鈥檙e sitting in it.
More recently, we have needed chairs whose width can be adjusted to fit many different riders. These are most needed in countries like Afghanistan, where war has made it difficult for local manufacturers to develop individually fitted chairs.
Do your female designers look at these problems differently?
Women have had a hand in the most critical parts of Whirlwind designs from the very beginning. They have come up with things that the men just completely missed. For example, one of the big problems for a wheelchair user in a developing country is how to take your bath in the morning. In most parts of Africa people use a bucket and a cup. But you don鈥檛 want to get your cushion wet because you have to sit on it all day. Also most of the cooking, eating and childcare happens at floor level and wheelchair users need to participate. So one of the women in Kenya came up with the idea of a 鈥渏ump seat鈥� 鈥� a second, lower seat between the footrests and the main seat. Now a user can hop down to wash, play with the kids or cook the breakfast on the little floor stove and then pop right back up again very nicely without much of a struggle.
The jump seat has another use. One thing that is particularly tricky for a wheelchair user in developing countries is using a pit latrine, which is basically a hole in the ground. I surveyed numerous friends and most of them had developed tricks that involved impressive feats of agility and a better aim than mine. But the jump seat gets around that too. It has a trap door fitted, so you just park over the hole in the ground and open it up.
Why do women designers have a different approach to men?
Because women, with or without disabilities, take on all the jobs that men don鈥檛 want to, plus they have to care for the kids. So the women have had to figure out ways to carry out these tasks whereas men can shirk those responsibilities to a greater extent.
You helped design chairs for the Zambian wheelchair basketball team. What did that entail?
Wheelchair basketball in Africa is akin to American football in the US in terms of how rough it is, so our basketball chairs were designed for doing damage to other chairs while protecting the rider鈥檚 legs. The footrests were tucked way back inside the chair so you wouldn鈥檛 lose a foot in a collision, and they had tubes running down the outside of your shins. The chair also had a radical, low-slung seat with a straight back for maximum quick-turning stability and ramming power.
What was your role in breaking the wheelchair market monopoly in the 1970s?
The American company Everest and Jennings controlled more than 95 per cent of a market worth $60 to $100 million for some 30 years. They were, for example, charging $495 in the US for their so-called sports chair in 1973 but selling the same chair in the UK for $135. So I conducted a sting operation in the company鈥檚 London showroom. I went in and made an order for 10 wheelchairs for an American basketball team. They were pleased to receive such a big order until I told them I would like them to ship the chairs to Washington DC. After a call to their parent company they said they couldn鈥檛 do it. That constituted an illegal restriction of international trade and helped trigger a monopoly investigation by the US Department of Justice.
Have you found expertise in wheelchair design useful in other industries?
One of those four Nicaraguan teenagers I met in 1980, Omar Talavera, became our first and best mechanic. He has ended up specialising in capsule design at NASA鈥檚 Ames Research Center in California. Astronauts need the high forces generated during take-off and re-entry to be well distributed on their seats and backs. Omar built seats for the centrifuge capsules used in training much as he had built wheelchair cushions in Nicaragua. His designs have not yet been used in spacecraft, but they may well be in the future.
Why would a wheelchair user and an astronaut need similar seat designs?
Wheelchair users with limited sensation are at risk from pressure sores. These can be fatal if they become infected, so a comfortable seat is essential. That鈥檚 a very similar situation to a pilot in a space capsule who is subjected to strong forces. The pressure has to be very well distributed by the seat to avoid injury.
What do you do to promote knowledge about wheelchair design in developing countries?
Twenty years ago we produced a book called Independence Through Mobility, which explains how to build a wheelchair from scratch. It is also an introduction to running a small business and includes information on appropriate tools that can be found or made locally. We run a class on wheelchair design and construction in the engineering school of San Francisco State University and some of our students go home and train other people. We have also held, or participated in, three all-Africa wheelchair design conferences.
Do you think the rights of disabled people are improving globally?
The attitude in many developing countries is different compared with the west. There is less reticence in asking for help and more willingness to offer it without being embarrassed. Also people don鈥檛 pretend not to see you.
The disability rights movement has erupted spontaneously all over the world. In Uganda, for example, the constitution now recognises people with disabilities as a sector of the population that deserves representation in the government, along with women, racial and religious groups. As a result some 40,000 disabled Ugandans are in elected positions ranging from the smallest village council to cabinet level.