Disability access in public buildings

Abstract

Rapid ageing, rise of road accidents, manmade and natural disasters, debilitating medical conditions and often invisible ailments cause more and more people with lowered ability to move freely. This is equally applicable to Sri Lanka which is adversely impacted by 30 years civil war and there are an estimated 900,000 disable people which mean around 5% disabilities from the population. In this context it is vital to provide them with basic facilities to live independent lives on an equal basis with others and acquire their contribution to national economic development through employing them in effective manner for sustainability. Sustainability in built environment involves promoting efficient buildings and minimizing their burden on environment, involving them on contribution of economic development, while protecting and restoring green systems, and enhancing the well-being of all people in general. Therefore- it should focus on barrier free environment when designing buildings. Whilst discussing for the creation of barrier free environment, it has been created some draw backs focus on most people neglect the disability access when planning and designing. Within this context this paper presents existing facilities available for disability access in public buildings in Sri Lankan context including critical review on available policies for building design for disability access. Comprehensive literature review, pilot survey and industrial survey was carried out to assess the disability access in public buildings such as banks, educational, hospital, office and administration, railway and bus stations and results revealed that the attention paid on disability access in public buildings were not up to the satisfactory level.