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DESIGN FOR ALL – TOOLS FOR ACCESSIBLE UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
The worldwide movement related to the inclusion of people with disabilities into society is a great challenge for all professions influencing the building process. The concept of “Design for All / Universal Design” is based on the aim that all built environments and products should be designed to meet the needs of the widest possible range of users. Architects, urban planners and designers must change routine procedures for creation of external and internal built environment; they must put greater emphasis on improving user quality of environment so that no users feel discriminated against built environment for the reason of physical barriers. Despite the Slovak legislation, incorrect solutions frequently appear in building processes. The reasons of the insufficient condition can be caused by lack of knowledge on different needs of disabled people and also by inadequate dissemination of recommended methods - Universal Design / Design for All. Access audits of the built environment help to detect missing and incorrect solutions and simultaneously are an effective tool in increasing social awareness with the aim to create human-centred built environment. This article focuses on the research methods and results aiming at identifying architectural barriers in the university environment. The introduction describes the methods of access audit checklist which were assembled in accordance with the principles of Design for All /Universal Design. The checklists had to be created in order to represent a solid basis for assessing, making final evaluations and making recommendations. The core of the article presents procedures and results of audits carried out in selected Slovak universities and students´ hostels. The audits aim at highlighting existing barriers and often repeated error solutions. At the conclusion of the article, the main benefits of carried out access audits are named.
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