Experiencing landscapes with spatial navigation by visually impaired children of the blind school, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Navigation through the environment helps experiencing the landscape by all the users including the ones who are having different sensory capabilities. The current research study focuses on spatial navigation of visually impaired in experiencing landscape Architecture. The research objectives were to explore the nature of sensual perception and the parameters pertaining to experiencing a familiarArchitectural landscapeby visually impaired childrenleading to favored and dis-favored navigations. The research study was conducted with a sample of visually impaired children (n=10, age=15-20, male: 5 and female: 5), who are students of blind school, Ratmalana. Sensory Ethnography was adoptedas the principal method and the data collection was done via small group observations, interviews anddiscussions. The hierarchy of sensory modalities associated with perception of visually impaired was identified as; haptic perception (34.5%), auditory perception (34.5%), olfactory perception (14%) and visual perception (17%) respectively. The psychological factors associated with overall navigation ofvisually impaired were recognized as; sense of comfort (30.5%), sense of freedom (21%), sense of discomfort (30.5%), sense of safety (9%) and sense of being unsafe (9%). The significant parameters leading to favored navigation were identified as less distance to the destination, availability of solid and void difference, natural ventilation, thermal comfort, connections to nature, less glare and being uncrowded. Dis-favored navigation were found to associate with more distance, crowded spaces, more turn-offs in the paths, darker spaces, spaces with more glare and noise.This investigation highlights the importance of transcending beyond the bias of vision and addressing different perception modalities when designing landscape architectural interventions to achieve optimal and inclusive spatial navigation.