Built environment for disabled persons in the USSR: Needs and problems
Viatcheslav K. Stepanov, Club "Contacts", Moscow, Russia
For a long period of time (from 1917 to 1985/86), no private initiative
to assist disabled people has been put into operation; no charity organizations
have been formed. The needs and problems of disabled people were a responsibility
of the State (the Ministry of Social Affairs) which had a very limited financial
capacity.
Such a formal attitude and official ideology regarding the problems of disabled
people - the basic formula of which was that in the near future all the
Soviet people would be harmonically developed and healthy - resulted in
public consciousness which completely neglected the rights and interests
of disabled persons. During those years the State had not given any financial
support to any considerable program aimed at developing building standards
in which the demands of disabled people are taken into account. This, in
combination with the lack of enterprises producing facilities for people
with physical difficulties, has brought us to illusive well-being: in the
streets of our cities and towns one rarely meets a person on crutches or
using a wheelchair.
In the last five years, during the Perestroika period, the movement for
the rights of disabled people has been remarkably active. Gosstroy of the
USSR started, for the first time, to work out the complex program directed
at creating barrier-free environment in towns and within buildings. A number
of charity organizations and foundations, as well as organizations of disabled
people have begun their work at different levels: state, republic, city,
town, district, etc. But the process of solving the problems of disabled
people is hindered because of the sluggishness of governmental institutions
and the economic crisis facing the country. It is not by chance then that
certain disabled people's organizations as well as private persons are taking
active steps without waiting for the authorities to proceed regarding the
needs and problems of disabled persons. For instance: the Ukrainian Organization
of the Blind, initiated recommendations on building projects for people
having weak sight; the author of the present report took part in the Project
of the Rehabilitation Centre for children from Chernobyl, a collective work
with professors of the Technical University, Berlin; the project of the
university for disabled people is in work at the moment; technical recommendations
for taking away barriers in order to create a barrier-free environment for
wheelchair users has been elaborated, etc.
Experts dealing with the problem of the living environment for disabled
persons are in acute necessity for cooperation with scientists and experts
from other countries who have already gained great experience in this field.
In my books, "Specialized Schools", "Educational-Medicinal
Centres" and, in my latest book especially, "Architectural Environment
for the Disabled and Old-Aged People", I strove for such cooperation
in order to formulate major standards and give architectural-technical variants
of realizing separate building elements which would promote the living situation
of disabled persons, considering ages and types of diseases. These standards
have an influence on both concrete building element constructions (entrances,
staircases, apparels, elevators, etc.) and on the whole building structure,
organization of room intercommunication, form organization, etc.
We can see an example in the specialized boarding schools for disabled children,
which lately have been projected on the principle of the corridor system.
Dull and formal school encirclement, long corridors, producing a negative
psychological effect on children. What we suggest is the system of "study-living
rooms", "large apartments", which include all necessary rooms:
for medical care, study, recreation, and accommodation for children in smaller
groups (8-12 children). The results of practical introduction of this system
into specialized boarding schools confirmed all the benefits of the new
system from educational, medical and economic points of view: migration
scales of disabled children and personnel reduced; children got, for the
first time in their lives, their own "home-cell" instead of barrack-like
corridor section; and an opportunity to live within their own "families"
under the care of medical-educational personnel.
The processes of creating and improving a material-technical basis for the
living conditions of disabled people are impossible without applying scientific
prognosis which, in turn, cannot be carried out without constant and continuing
cooperation of experts from different countries. The information which we
have an opportunity to gain at the seminar will be put to use in the USSR,
both in elaborating norms regimenting the city environment, and in constructing
concrete buildings for disabled persons.
