Last modified: 2016-03-22
Abstract
Housing, medical care and education are the fundamental rights of every person regardless of their condition. The philosophy of universal design in architecture discipline seeks to include every person physically and psychologically in the physical environment. According to this philosophy, there should not be any labeled person regarding their disabilities.
From this point of view, it is important to clearly observe the accessibility levels of existing buildings and new designs, so that development and alterations are possible. Also, for existing buildings, a monitoring system can help the building owners and responsible persons be aware of accessibility issues and act accordingly.
As the need for an accessibility monitoring system is obvious, the required background study about monitoring systems are made and a new system for accessibility is formed. The named system is created by studying different types of monitoring models in architecture, different standards and guidelines to create a structure for the system and adapt the standards to it. The proposed model can be adjusted to evaluate different types of facilities with different functions, in this case, for educational facilities.
A barrier such as designing different entrances for able bodied people and disabled ones, allows physical access in an entrance but psychologically discriminates the disabled ones. The proposed model rates facilities regarding their accessibility level in all aspects and hands out the weak spots of a building that poses a barrier for a user. This system assesses the facility from design stage through its life cycle and includes all current and future users. In the paper, the proposed model is introduced in detail. Also, a case study conducted in three educational facilities in Istanbul are given as a trial of the model. The results of the case study are also explained and recommendations are made for future studies in the area.