Roll Call Tribute

Published in (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) Courier Mail on February 26, 2011
[His DOD not given in article]

Dr Rodney Mervyn Warmington(1942-2010)
AS A teenager, Rod Warmington seemed set to lead a charmed life. A "straight A" student and star athlete, he won a scholarship to the University of Queensland and had almost finished an architecture degree when fate delivered him a cruel blow.

He had been persuaded by some mates to join them for a trip to the Gold Coast and on the way home, disaster struck on the rain-soaked bridge over the Logan River at Beenleigh.

Those were the days before compulsory seat belts. Dr Warmington was asleep in the back seat and fell out of the car when the door opened, plunging 7m on to the river bank.

None of the other four passengers or the driver was hurt, but his back was broken and he was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Tellingly, his best friend was driving the car but the pair still remained close for the rest of Dr Warmington's life.

He also managed to complete his degree, despite a long stay in hospital, and was believed to have been the first person with a disability to be registered as an architect in Queensland.

Another measure of his strong character was the fact he devoted his life to fighting for better wheelchair access to public buildings, in the process improving the lives of thousands of other people with disabilities.

He often spoke at public events about the issue and was chairman of the Queensland Committee on Access for the Disabled.His most notable victory came in 1994 after he and other wheelies decided to stage a much-publicised protest outside the nearly completed $170 million Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

They were incensed that such an important public edifice had no proper wheelchair access. Instead, disabled people had to take a lift 43m away in a carpark on a side street.

The Paraplegic and Quadriplegic Association of Queensland took the state government to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, arguing that it had breached the Anti-Discrimination Act and that the building design was a form of "architectural apartheid".

In a landmark judgment that was to have profound implications for building design, the tribunal ruled that the government had to build a lift near the 27 concrete stairs at the front that had caused all the fuss.

Although Dr Warmington was born in Kilcoy, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, his family, including older sister Denise, moved to Townsville when he was still a child.

His father Mervyn, who worked in a local sawmill, later decided to relocate the family to Brisbane when Rod was 14 after realising his son was a gifted student.

Rod rewarded him by topping both his junior and senior years at Cavendish Road State High School.

Dr Warmington worked for the State Public Works Department for many years.

In that time he gained qualifications in landscape architecture and won a Churchill Fellowship in 1972, using it to travel overseas to study disabled access in public buildings.

After returning to Australia from his Churchill Fellowship travels, he met and married Hilary, who had multiple sclerosis. She became his soulmate over the next three decades.

One of the highlights of their life together was a three-year stint in the US in the 1970s, when they lived at Texas A&M University while he gained a masters degree in architecture and a doctorate.

Dr Warmington eventually left the Public Works Department in the 1990s to become a private architectural consultant, specialising in designs for wheelchair accessibility in buildings. He also taught at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Despite failing health, particularly after the death of his wife three years ago, he continued his private consultancy until his retirement in 2009, often working from his hospital bed.

Dr Warmington is survived by his sister Denise.