Report of the CIB Expert Seminar on Building Non-Handicapping Environments,
Harare 1992
Opportunities and challenges of barrier-free design consciousness - an evaluation of the application of barrier-free design principles in the socio-cultural circumstances in Ghana
Dr. H. N. A. Wellington, Building & Road Research Institute and Dept.
of Architecture, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Contents
Abstract
Owing to the traditional conception of the disabled
as a person who has to be dependant, it had not been a common practice in
the past for disabled people to be active users of public buildings and
spaces. It had been presupposed that people with disabilities had to be
taken care of by the family within the confines of the domestic space.
However, as a result of changes in governmental policies to address the
need to train persons with disabilities to acquire skills and necessary
vocations and professions for active participation in the socio-economic
development process, there is an upsurge of the number of disabled persons
who are leading active public lives, becoming part of the user-group utilizing
public buildings for production, recreation, commerce, transportation, education
etc.
Out of the experience of executing the design-task on the Jachie Sheltered
Employment Center in Ashanti, Ghana, commissioned by the Ghana Society of
the Physically Disabled and funded by the Norwegian Society for the Physically
Disabled, a barrier-free design consciousness was developed.
The paper describes the design process and the resulting architectural scheme
for the Project. The barrier-free design consciousness thereby obtained
is analyzed to show its limitation in the attempt to apply it to achieve
macro-accessibility in disenabling socio-cultural circumstances.
In conclusion, the paper recommends a number of interventions which can
be undertaken to create a positive framework within which barrier-free design
consciousness can be employed to promote effective macro-accessibility.
Key words
- anthropometrics
- barrier-free design consciousness
- Sheltered Employment Center
- Park-Library Complex
Introduction
Traditionally in Ghana, similar to many other African
countries, the disabled person has been regarded as one who should be a
dependant of the extended family, being a passive recipient of services
and charity. Supposedly, he had to be taken care of by the family within
the confines of the domestic space and within the immediate limits of the
community environment where there were willing neighbors to assist him/her
traverse the physical barriers in the way of movement to and utilization
of social and communal facilities.
However, this notion has gone through an extensive transformation, owing
to the erosion of the supportive system provided by the extended family.
The transformation which has affected the disabled dependency on the family
has also taken place as a result of changes in governmental policies which
have been going on since the 1960s. These policies, to some extent, address
the need to train the disabled persons to acquire skills, necessary vocations
and professions for active participation in the socio-economic development
process. As a result, there is an upsurge in the number of disabled persons
who are leading active public lives, becoming part of the user-group utilizing
public buildings for production, recreation, commerce, transportation, education
etc.
With this positive development in the socio-cultural and economic circumstance
of the disabled persons, who form about two per cent (2 per cent) of the
Ghanaian national population, the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled
was led to develop a sheltered employment center to both provide a training
facility for its members and at the same time demonstrate the virtues of
a designed environment, conceived with optimum accessibility considerations.
Out of this development, intentions evolved the Jachie Sheltered Employment
Center in 1984 located at Jachie Pramso in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
The experience gained in the design process of the project serves as a basis
for this paper.
Familiarization with barrier-free design parameters
In many schools of architecture in Africa, no design
assignments are planned and integrated into the academic programs to specifically
address the accessibility factor. Anthropometric studies, which form part
of the basic first year architecture design studies, refer to different
age and sex groups, but do not take into consideration the fact that there
exists in many African communities a sizeable percentage of the population
with physical disabilities, which affect their anthropometrics and should
therefore constitute a target-group in such architectural studies.
Having been part of this academic tradition resulted in the design process
for the Jachie Sheltered Employment Center to be a remarkable personal learning
experience. The Project, funded by the Norwegian Society for the Physically
Disabled was conceived as an African village, where wheelchair, crutch,
and cane users live, work and train in industrial skills under micro-accessibility
conditions. Besides the sheltered workshops, which were meant for the manufacturing
of handicraft goods, dresses, leather goods, and orthopaedic equipment,
the facility was planned to include an administrative block with central
stores, a multipurpose hall, staff housing units, 4 bed-sitter units, a
hostel, a generator house and fuel depot, recreational grounds and a fish-pond.
The 3.8-hectare land site organized to have these units spatially composed
with the aid of an intensive landscaping around a circulation system which
created a barrier-free environment with a de-institutionalized atmosphere.
The architectural designs of both the exterior spaces (including the accessways,
community and domestic outdoor spaces) and the interior spaces (including
living, sleeping, working, sanitary and ancillary spaces) were based on
barrier-free environment design-parameters and the use of special disabled-oriented
fittings and fixtures.
The first phase of the project was completed and commissioned in 1986. It
has since been in use and serves as a major public facility in the Ashanti
Region.
Evolution of a barrier-free design consciousness
The challenge to undertake the design task for the
development of the Jachie Sheltered Employment Center created the opportunity
to address in a new light, the issues which invariably cause the architectural
design process to result in quality and cost effective schemes. As a result,
there was the need to revert to the basic principle of user-orientedness
in the evolution of the designs. Hence, at the conception stage of the designs,
there was the need to borrow a wheelchair into the design office for use
in order to afford each member of the design team an experience of the accessibility
factor.
The experience created a greater sense for architectural detailing with
respect to circulation and positioning of fixtures and fittings. No doubt,
this consciousness made it easier to pursue design excellence in determination
of functional relationships, space configuration and articulation for the
complex. Although there was a great pressure both at the design and construction
stages to achieve cost-effectiveness in the project, it was nonetheless
discovered that consideration for accessibility created logically, higher
cost-implications for the clients. Making provision for wider doors, (900-1000
mm), larger circulation space (1800-2000 mm), coupled with provision for
ramps (gradient 1:20) and special sanitary fittings and accessories which
had to be imported, invariably pushed up the construction cost by about
20 per cent more than it would have been.
The intensive collaboration with the clients, the Ghana Society of the Physically
Disabled, provided an enabling circumstance to practice community architecture
on the Project. By this, the clients' views on and sensibilities for the
designs were recognized and incorporated into the final design entity, resulting
in a scheme which became identifiable with the users and owners.
Application of a barrier-free design in the socio-cultural context
Since the experience of executing the architectural
design of the Jachie Sheltered Employment Center, attempts have been made
to apply the design consciousness gained on other projects in order to develop
macro-accessibility. However, a number of socio-cultural factors have thereby
posed constraints to limit the contextualization attempts. The following
two scenarios illustrate these disenabling socio-cultural factors.
Consideration for the notion that since macro-accessibility is an utopian
idea, disabled children should be trained to cope with non-barrier-free
environments2, led to no provision of ramps and special sanitary facilities
in the design of the Asanteman Children's Park Library Complex. However,
to reduce the stress thereby created on wheelchair bound children who come
to the Park, the design provided vehicular access for disabled persons to
the major sections of the Park, where no vehicles are usually allowed.
In the development of a hostel facility for clinical students of the School
of Medical Sciences of the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi,
attempt to make the environment barrier-free was frustrated by the clients
by virtue of insisting on a Design Brief which presupposed that disabled
persons should not be admitted into the School and consequently not provided
for in the School's Hostel. However, owing to the difficult topographical
situation of the site, the design concept managed to incorporate a system
of ramps to facilitate movement of goods and persons in the central circulation
spine of the Hostel Complex.
The above scenarios of the constraints posed to frustrate the attempts to
introduce macro-accessibility can be certainly eliminated, if access legislation
is introduced into the Ghanaian Human Settlements (Planning and Development)
Law and the Building Regulations. Architects should then consequently respond
creatively to the requirements imposed on the design of housing, public
buildings and spaces.
Conclusions and recommendations
In conclusion, it has to be emphasized that the execution
of the design-task on the Jachie Sheltered Employment Center as an attempt
to address the issue of micro-accessibility, served a positive purpose by
stimulating a barrier-free design consciousness. The consciousness created
however was personal and therefore its consequent influence and impact has
been limited in scope. It can notwithstanding be harnessed to promote macro-accessibility,
when an enabling development framework has been established.
As a contribution towards the establishment of the desired framework in
Ghana and other African countries, it is recommended that amongst others:
- The accessibility factor should be introduced into the first year
anthropometric studies in the architectural design programs of schools of
architecture in Africa. Students may thereby be infused with the notion
of the desirability for barrier-free environments.
- In both undergraduate and post graduate courses in Architecture, Planning
and Engineering (Traffic and Highway), academic programs should be given
to students to work on micro- and macro-accessibility projects.
- Design Competitions should be sponsored amongst students on regular
basis to address macro-accessibility design projects. These should be exhibited
at Public gatherings when presented.
- In conjunction with the Institute of Architects, donor agents and
organizations should institute Citations to be awarded on regular basis
to completed projects which address accessibility with a high degree of
imagination.
- To grant the legal framework for application of barrier-free design
principles, attempts should be made by Disabled Associations and other related
public organizations to promote legislations on accessibility in the built
environment.
References
Amoako, J. B. (undated) Architectural, Recreational and Transportation Barriers
to Integration of the Handicapped into the Community, unpublished paper
presented at a symposium organized in connection into the Decade of Rehabilitation,
Accra.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (1975) Housing the Handicapped,
Revised Edition, Canada.
Faculty Project Office (1983) Faculty of Architecture, U. S. T., Kumasi,
Jachie Sheltered Employment Centre, Design Report, Kumasi, Ghana.
Hammond, J. O. (June 1984) Sheltered Employment Centre, Jachie-Pramso, Ashanti,
unpublished Post-graduate Diploma Design Thesis, Department of Architecture,
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
Ministry of Works and Housing (1988) Ghana Building Regulations.
Republic of Ghana (1985) Rural Settlement (General Planning and Development)
Law, (Draft Proposals).
Harare
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