Accessibility to the built environment affects a large number of people within society. It is accepted throughout the European Union that at any one time 15-20% of the population will have a significant level of disability of a temporary or permanent nature.
Engineers, planners, and designers have used Leonardo de Vinci’s ‘average man’ as a guideline for their work. It has become the basic model on which the majority of designs are based. Yet there is no such thing as the ‘average man’.
Another type of design that has been the main focus of designers and engineers in buildings is the ‘toilet and ramp’ approach and catering for wheelchair users. Features such as colour schemes, lighting, the absence of loop systems and poor acoustics had rarely been considered in the design process. As a result of this focus on designing to meet the needs of people with physical disabilities, the needs of the vast majority of people with other disabilities are being ignored in the design process.
