As part of One Accessibility advocacy, we share information about disability issues, inclusion, and or accessibility features on Maps. Look out every week for this enlightening post.
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Accessibility Uncovered post!
As you might know by previous posts, our articles this month are about accessible stores in our areas.
This post is about a store in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I live.
You can read about stores across the world in the previous posts of the series. Feel free to write about an accessible store close to you too!
The store I chose is Mercat de Villa Crespo (Market of Villa Crespo), an amazing place that opened in my neighborhood in late 2019 - which I still consider new because of the quarantine we had since a short time since it opened, but mostly because of it’s continuous growth and modern design.
It’s a big indoor market with a big variety of shops inside, mostly places to eat and stores that sell products to cook. Those places range from more local products like meat and northern foods like empanadas and humitas, to international places that offer Mexican, Asian, Israeli, French and - my favorite - Transilvania (Erdely’s Kürtos is a must!)
Of course, Mercat is also fully inclusive and offers vegan, gluten free and organic dishes. It even is one of the few places in the city with a vegan ice cream shop: Haulani.
The market is still growing though, and getting different kinds of places that sell products like clothes, flowers, and more.
The ground and first floor are full of those stores, but the third one (where I haven’t been yet) has a coworking area and places that allow the market to act as a cultural center, and where many cooks have offered cooking classes.
Not only does it have many interesting (and delicious!) things to offer, but it also has a really good design and features beautiful art related to the place.
Now that you know how great the place is, and since I mentioned the design, let’s go to the topic that makes the place even better!
Mercat’s Accessibility
- Mercat’s entrance is wide, and it has a ramp on one of its sides that make the place accessible to wheelchair users.
- No matter how dark it is outside, Mercat seems to always have the right amount of light, helping people with auditory disabilities read lips as they sit down to eat.
- Although it can get a bit noisy if it’s busy, none of the stores have loud music, helping neurodiverse folks be more comfortable.
- Besides the stairs, there are wheelchair-friendly elevators that allow wheelchair users and more people with mobility restrictions to access all of it’s levels.
- The corridors are very spacious, letting many people walk side to side on both ways. The places you can enter are spacious too.
- It has accessible restrooms, prepared for wheelchair users too.
- There are places to sit down outside and inside, although there are some tall chairs, there are also regular height ones, and tables to eat at wheelchair level.
Thank you for reading, I hope you liked Mercat and it’s features!
- Do you have a similar place close to you? Or have you ever visited a place like this? Please let me know! I would love to know about other places like this one, and hopefully visit them someday.
If you have a question, suggestion, or contribution, feel free to comment below. You can read last week’s roundup article here and check the list of our other articles under "Accessibility Uncovered".
I would appreciate if more places took that aspect into consideration for those neurodiverse as you mentioned.
Hopefully they will make more peaceful markets near you so you and others can shop as you’d like.
- will definitely take you next time you’re here!