Barrier Free Design

This book for architects, interior designers, building managers, students, conference organisers looks at first principles to provide the user with the 'tools' to make their own decisions rather than a 'cookbook' approach. It is intended that designs and product information can be taken straight from the manual and inserted into ongoing projects. For the first time the book considers the needs of people with visual, hearing and mental disabilities, who make up the majority of disabled people in the population, alongside those of people with physical mobility disabilities. Practical low cost solutions to retro-fitting existing buildings are discussed, as well as the methods used to assess the suitability of an existing building, and assembling a project to improve access for disabled people. Specific products and designs are illustrated and discussed - with full working technical drawings, and full specification details. These will reduce considerably the research time needed to produce a cost-effective solution that will improve access for disabled people. A perspective of the standards and legislation dealing with access issues in the UK is compared with those in other countries, and the standards mentioned are compared with the realities of practical implementation carried out in 4 years of design in this area.

Das Buch vermittelt allen Fachplanern, Architekten, aber auch interessierten Bauherren praxisnahe Grundinformationen und planerische Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten zum Thema der Barrierefreiheit. Es zeigt, wie entsprechende Anforderungen in ästhetisch anspruchsvolle Architektur umgesetzt werden können. Und es führt vor, dass die Berücksichtigung der Barrierefreiheit bereits in der frühen Planungsphase nicht zwingend Mehrkosten gegenüber dem »klassischen« Bauen verursacht. Das Buch umfasst neben einem Überblick über grundsätzliche Planungsgrundlagen auch das damit verbundene Regelwerk sowie deren beispielhafte Darstellung und perspektivischen Entwicklungen im europäischen Kontext.

Buildings are not conceived solely with average people in mind; they offer a protective shell for everyone. Basics Barrier-free Planning improves our understanding of the needs of people with disabilities such as limited mobility or impaired vision, children, and the elderly, all of whom have special requirements when using a building. The book presents possibilities for designing buildings and their spaces so they can be used by everyone.

“All too often,” wrote disabled architect Ronald Mace, “designers don’t take the needs of disabled and elderly people into account.” Building Access investigates twentieth-century strategies for designing the world with disability in mind. Commonly understood in terms of curb cuts, automatic doors, Braille signs, and flexible kitchens, Universal Design purported to create a built environment for everyone, not only the average citizen. But who counts as “everyone,” Aimi Hamraie asks, and how can designers know? Blending technoscience studies and design history with critical disability, race, and feminist theories, Building Access interrogates the historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts for these questions, offering a groundbreaking critical history of Universal Design. Hamraie reveals that the twentieth-century shift from “design for the average” to “design for all” took place through liberal political, economic, and scientific structures concerned with defining the disabled user and designing in its name. Tracing the co-evolution of accessible design for disabled veterans, a radical disability maker movement, disability rights law, and strategies for diversifying the architecture profession, Hamraie shows that Universal Design was not just an approach to creating new products or spaces, but also a sustained, understated activist movement challenging dominant understandings of disability in architecture, medicine, and society. Illustrated with a wealth of rare archival materials, Building Access brings together scientific, social, and political histories in what is not only the pioneering critical account of Universal Design but also a deep engagement with the politics of knowing, making, and belonging in twentieth-century United States.