Towards a barrier-free environment

Abstract

To date, the outdoor designed environment has seen little input of Barrier-Free design principles. Partly the result of illinformed designers, partly the fault of ineffectual legislation, but mainly the result of environmental barriers, the great outdoors have remained the great unknown for many disabled people.

The built environment has been injected with increasingly stronger doses of Barrier-Free design over the last decade to make many of our new buildings accessible to those people who have difficulty in functioning within the tight and demanding spaces of conventional building design. Perhaps it is thought that the outdoors, with its open spaces, is less constricting for disabled people and their difficulties begin once they get indoors. The fact is that the built environment only scratches the surface of the problem as the majority of disabled people are unable to reach buildings because of the barriers they confront within the outdoor environment. The most frustrating and pervasive barriers for disabled people are not within the natural outdoor environment but the designed outdoor environment because here is an environment designed by people for people, but not for disabled people.

This study asks why disabled people are denied access to the designed outdoor environment. It answers this question by exploring the reasons behind the barrier problem and understanding disabled people - their needs, values, characteristics and constraints within the environment. Through identifying the nature of environmental barriers and corning to understand disabled people and their relationship with the designed environment, the study offers a design framework that seeks to integrate disabled people into the mainstream by way of a Barrier-Free outdoor environment.