Development of design strategies of accessible university campus areas for disabled people: case study of Istanbul Technical University campus

In order to create an entirely integrated society, it is essential that the disabled are able to move freely. The built-environment harbors many obstacles and deficiencies that deprive the disabled individual of such free roaming, hence the disabled may not reach the urban areas as freely as it is needed. It is essential to determine the type of obstacles the disabled encounter in their daily lives, so that the neccessary solutions and/or alterations may take place. The emphasis of this thesis is on the disabled people's accessibility within the campus as well as in the urban city. While forming the objective of this study, the afore mentioned obstacles have been analyzed in accordance with the experiences of the disabled in order to generate the principles and proposals to meet the needs of the disabled. Moreover, it is important to recall that the study lays great stress on the visibility of the disabled, whether in campus or in urban life, it is essential to underline that the disabled's visibility in society hinges upon the coalition of the awareness and design. This study has also been conducted to serve as a basis for further studies in the field. The study contains a thorough analysis of the disabled univeristy students' accessibility to and within the urban city. According to the analysis the needs and possible solutions have been presented. Further, the study also elaborates on the social and physical measurings and interventions. By measuring the physical design and the disabled individual's interrelation from the sociological aspect, thus its impact paves the way for the uncovering of the interrelation of physical and sociological obstacles as an entirety, that the disabled person has to endure, which marks the authenticty of the study. The study has been built upon three main layers. The first is literature research; secondly the conducting of interviews and questionnaires by an inductive method, which mark the daily struggle of the disbled individual; as the third layer, field works in three different aspects have been done. As the first part of the third layer, the accessibility to Istanbul Technical University's (ITU) Ayazağa Campus whether on foot or by means of public transportation has been analyzed. Then, the interzonal transportation of ITU campuses have been analyzed. Finally the accessibility within the Ayazağa Campus on foot has been analyzed. Depending upon these analysis' the physical accessibility of the campus within the city has been determined. The first layer analysis has been conducted based upon literature review with a systematic research and observational research. Critical disability theory constitutes the main framework in the study of literature. With the induction approach, the problems of disabled people in daily urban life have been revealed by describing and understanding the facts. In the second layer analysis has been conducted based upon a questionnaire study that has been completed with 100 disabled higher education students in Istanbul. Interaction with this study, data analysis and observation and interpretation have been carried out. Questionnaire study has contained main information, urban life and campus life. As a result of this survey study, the social and physical accessibility status of disabled students in urban and campus life has been determined. In the direction of the questionnaires, the frequency and forms of participation in urban life and the expectations within urban and campus life of the disabled individuals have been examined. The second level of the second layer analysis is an in-depth interview that has been completed with the 10 disabled students who are the students and / or staff of ITU. With the interviews; the development of the design strategies and the creation of the matrices, that is necessary for the fieldwork of the third layer of the study, the identification of all physical and social problems and needs within the city and within the campus have been determined. The first and the second levels of the third layer accessibility analysis' have been conducted based upon the first matrix that has been built upon the foundation created by the answers that have been given in the questionnaire's and interviews. The participants of those questionnaires in conjuction with the criteria given in the literature have determined the main criterion of accessibility. Whereas, the third level accessibility analysis has been based upon a second matrix, which has been created according to the accessibility criteria presented in literature and the main principle of 5C walkability dictated by the London Planning Advisory Commitee. All matrixes have been weighted by Analytical Hierarchy Process method. The matrixes have been scored by 10 disabled people to calculate and evaluate the accessibility of the fields and routes. Considering accessibility of intercity transportation, it is concluded that the problems in the aforementioned area is the foundation regarding the hindrances in the accessibility of urban areas. The determined obstacles that a disabled person has to face in an urban city while trying to reach public transportation have been listed as the following; the narrowness of the pedways, urban furnishings and parked cars at the pedways and scarceness of notification. Additionally, while boarding a public transportation vehicle the space between the platform they're on and the vehicle or the vehicle's entrance escalator's stairs height or the lack of space and again notification inside the vehicle may be presented as the primary hindrances that affect the disabled. Urban open spaces should be designed without all kinds of physical barriers. The spaces should be safe and secure, should have the audible and visual signals and should be designed with smooth and non-slippery materials. Achieving full accessibility for all is important for reaching urban spaces. To ensure accessibility in transport, pedestrian ways, public transportation vehicles, stopping points and transfer centers should be designed for all individuals. In the field work conducted in the campus' of ITU it has been determined that the campuses lack a strong connection with each-other. Hence, even the integration of the students who study in different campuses of ITU is unrealizable. In the field work conducted in the Ayazağa Campus of ITU, it has been realised that the campus lacks the optimum level of accessibility within the different functional areas of the campus, which is essential. While in the more crowded and much used areas accessibility is never an issue, it is noted that when one drifts away from those areas, accessability becomes much more scarce. As a result of the analysis it has been determined that in those areas where primarly by the elevation changes, accessibility becomes a predominant issue. Urban design must offer every user of the urban city a democratic and equal area for living. To achieve a full accessibility the criterion and universal design principles must be adopted in any urban area. Accessible urban areas will provide every user an equal opportunity, hence stabilize a user oriented urban environment and social justice. To provide the disabled the opportunity to be independently mobile within the city all urban design and accessibilty criterion have to be taken into consideration and re-organized accordingly to the needs of the disabled user. This study's findings may serve as means to increase the visibility of disabled students, while promoting the idea that their visibility may be achieved by both raising awareness and designing according to the needs of those students. Hence the study may serve as a basis for further studies regarding the issue, whereas it shall also serve as a foundation stone to any academic, non-governmental organization or local authority that may further work on the issues of accessibility or disabilities.