With rights to access now become basic human rights, it demands a tool for building disability inclusiveness assessment to tell how far we have gone to include persons with disabilities (PWDs) in buildings. Calling for more researches in disability inclusive facilities and inclusive education in various international conventions and statements such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the UNESCO Salamanca Statement (1994), the Physical Disability Inclusion Sub-score (PDIS) and the Visual Impairment Inclusion Sub-score (VIIS) as simple, quantitative and more objective tools for assessing higher education buildings were developed here. Other than that whether building professionals have knowledge of the way PWDs access and use buildings were at the same time examined. This study consists of four parts with (1) conception, (2) the PDIS and the VIIS for assessing the disability inclusiveness of buildings, (3) main survey and (4) conclusion. By way of literature review, the PDIS and the VIIS frameworks were constructed and they were fine-tuned with inputs from building professionals and users with impairments in the pilot phase. NSFDSS but not the far more popular AHP was applied to weight the elements under the PDIS and the VIIS for both credibility and practicality reasons. In all, between March and July 2012, 20 building professionals, 22 persons with physical disability and 21 persons with visual impairment were surveyed. The PDIS and the VIIS then developed were much simplified with around 200 items under about 20 categories. Design was weighed by all to be more important than Management. Following that 48 higher education buildings from four universities in Hong Kong were assessed in March to September 2013. The dispersal of the PDIS and the VIIS were found largely due to Design rather than Management. In the disability inclusion performance of different categories, Operations and Maintenance, and Management Approaches were respectively the best and the least well performed categories, and Vertical Circulation and Entrance were the more disability inclusive Design categories. As for hypothesis testing, 13 working hypotheses were developed from 4 main hypotheses. By Spearman’s rank correlation test or the t-test, it was found that building professionals and both persons with physical disability and persons with visual impairment did not weigh the elements under the PDIS and the VIIS differently, and the mean values of the standard deviation of the weightings given by users with impairments were not greater than those given by building professionals. It is evidenced that building professionals somehow have knowledge of the way the physically impaired and the visually impaired access and use buildings, and impaired users are not biased on their experience. Having the PDIS and the VIIS developed, it is in pole position to adjust and apply them to study other buildings such as health care facilities and office buildings. Towards a more progressively aggressive step is to make changes to them to examine the more complex issue of ageing friendliness of buildings for the grey population following WHO Age-friendly Environments Programme. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Many countries in the world have in recent years developed measures to increase accessibility to the built environment for persons with disabilities. Of particular concern are facilities such as roads, railways and public premises. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) confers accessibility as a right and gives responsibility to state parties to ensure to persons with disabilities (PWDs) a barrier free environment. The Constitution of Kenya (2010) states that PWDs have a right to facilities including educational that integrate their needs. The Person With Disabilities Act (2003) provides for mechanisms through which such enforcements can be enacted. The body responsible for implementing the Act has developed minimum accessibility guidelines to inform this endeavor as part of Kenya‟s dream of becoming a middle income economy by the year 2030. This research report/treatise details the findings of a pilot baseline survey study conducted in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa Cities.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Management, University of Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the Degree of Masters of Management (in Public and Management Development) February 2017 / Accessibility in the built environment has always created barriers for persons with disabilities. Accessibility in public buildings is a key factor for persons with disabilities in achieving livelihoods and independence. However, inaccessible public buildings limits the rights of persons with disabilities to equal participation and prevents them from being equal citizens. Persons with disabilities are often faced with barriers that limit them from actively participating in social and economic life. Many of these barriers are related to accessibility in the built environment. This research report looked into the Department of Public Works’ Accessibility Programme. The accessibility programme intends to make all state-owned buildings accessible for persons with disabilities. The participants of the study were mostly implementers of the accessibility programme and participants from organisations of persons with disabilities. Most of the participants acknowledged the work the Department of Public Works has done. However, they also noted shortcomings in implementing the accessibility programme. The lack of knowledge on disability issues and understanding on how to address accessibility in the built environment was a contributing factor to the ineffective and efficient accessibility programme. The recommendations of the study include inclusive disability programmes in the built environment in the planning, policy development, designing and completion stages. Education and advocacy are highly recommended at all stages of the implementation of the accessibility programme. / MT2017

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes special report study entitled: Architecture and orientation & mobility training. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes special report study entitled : Architecture and orientation & mobility training. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

The problem of the physically handicapped and architectural barriers has been a growing international, national, and University concern. Handicapped citizens are frequently "walled out" of public buildings because of thoughtlessness of the design. The handicapped have the right of access to public buildings. Because Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is a public university, in fact and tradition, it has a responsibility to assure the accessibility of the campus to all who wish to use it. The first step in remedying the access problem at the university level would be to inventory the architectural barriers in the campus buildings and on the University site and access the current status of other factors effecting access at the University. The purpose of this study was to examine the problem of access and the handicapped at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University through these four research questions: 1. What was the current status of the problem of architectural barriers within the facilities of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University? 2. What was the extent of the activity, either proposed or in progress, for relieving the existing architectural barriers within Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University? 3. What was the extent of activity designed to prevent architectural barriers in future construction of University facilities? 4. What were the activities or programs which would be appropriate to provide for the removal of architectural barriers within current and future facilities of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University? The study developed the data to answer these questions through three research methods. First, an architectural survey form was developed from existing forms, architectural specifications, and related literature. This survey form was used to inventory the architectural barriers in fifty-one academic and administrative buildings on the University's main campus. The second method involved contacting handicapped students and staff in order to obtain their viewpoint concerning problems associated with access at the University. The contact was made by a mailed questionnaire and through personal interviews. The third method involved interviewing various members of the University administrative staff to determine the experience and perceptions of administrative staff concerning problems of access. Secondary purposes of these interviews were to determine if funds would be available to support the process of making the University accessible. It was found that the University was not generally accessible to handicapped persons. No building on the campus complied with current National or state access standards. No local organization or person had the responsibility to assure a barrier-free campus. Funds for removing campus barriers were non-existent and few discretionary funds could be used for this purpose. The single activity directed toward removal of architectural barriers on the campus was the development of an Ad Hoc Committee of the University Faculty Senate to study the problem. The study concluded with several recommendations in the areas of policy and architectural and site alterations. The primary implication for further research was directed toward defining the characteristics of Virginia's and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's handicapped population and to use this data to determine wny the University's handicapped population was so low. / Ed. D.

Orientador: Luísa Andréia Gachet Barbosa / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Tecnologia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T12:45:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_FabianaMariada_M.pdf: 2221147 bytes, checksum: acb168d3d261f81f3d6f6d1d25e50816 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: O reaproveitamento de resíduos na construção civil tem sido uma alternativa viável para diminuir o consumo de materiais naturais e a disposição inadequada dos resíduos no meio ambiente. Neste trabalho avaliou-se o reaproveitamento de resíduo de borracha de pneus, proveniente do processo de recauchutagem, em substituição parcial do agregado miúdo natural, para a produção de pisos táteis intertravados de concreto. O piso tátil de concreto é uma peça utilizada na pavimentação, que permite a percepção do ambiente ou rotas acessíveis, proporcionando mais segurança e autonomia para as pessoas com deficiência visual. A substituição foi feita em relação à massa da areia nas proporções de 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% e 50%. As seguintes propriedades do concreto foram investigadas: consistência no estado fresco, resistência à compressão, resistência à tração na flexão, absorção de água, índice de vazios, massa específica do concreto endurecido, resistência à abrasão, resistência ao impacto e análise de microestrutura. Embora a grande limitação do uso da borracha de pneus como agregado no concreto seja a redução das resistências mecânicas, os traços com até 50% de substituição atingiram ótimos valores de resistência à compressão e resistência à tração na flexão e apresentaram melhores resultados de resistência à abrasão. A utilização do resíduo de borracha de pneus, em substituição parcial da areia natural no concreto para a produção de piso tátil, além de contribuir com a sustentabilidade na construção civil, por meio da economia de extração de matérias-primas e redução do descarte e acúmulo inadequado de pneus inservíveis, proporcionou melhorias a algumas propriedades importantes para a eficiência e qualidade do piso tátil de concreto / Abstract: The reuse of waste in construction has been a viable alternative to reduce the consumption of natural materials and the improper disposal of waste on the environment. In this work recycled tire rubber (crumb rubber) was used as aggregate in concrete to produce tactile paving block. The concrete tactile paving block allows perception of the place or accessible routes, providing more security and independence for people with visual disabilities. The crumb rubber was used to replace sand by mass at the level of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%. The concrete characterization was performed by testing its consistency, compressive strength, flexural strength, water absorption, porosity, density, abrasion resistance, impact resistance and microstructure analysis. Although the major limitation using the crumb rubber as aggregate in the concrete is to reduce the mechanical strength, the mixtures with up to 50% of substitution reached optimal values ??of compressive strength and flexural strength and showed a better abrasion resistance. The use of crumb rubber in partial replacement of natural sand in concrete to produce tactile paving block, proved to be a viable alternative. Besides contributing to construction sustainability, minimizing the extraction of raw materials, and reducing improper disposal and accumulation of scrap tires, provided improvements to some important properties that assure the efficiency and quality of the concrete tactile paving block / Mestrado / Tecnologia e Inovação / Mestra em Tecnologia