Examination of architectural places due to accessibility standards in which designed for visual impaired: Libraries for visually impaired people

A person with a disability is any person who needs various physical arrangements to be able to act independently in public spaces and buildings due to the loss of physical, mental, psychological or social abilities in different degrees. Disabled people should be considered as a part of the society who needs to ensure accessibility in the participation of the social life rather than as a separate segment of the society. Accessibility is a fundamental feature of the physical environment. The outdoor and indoor spaces which are used by all of society including individuals with disabilities must be designed in accordance with accessibility standards. In the practice of accessibility standards In Turkey, it can be shown that the physically disabled people is mostly considered in regulations and applications while the needs and requirements of other disabled groups are ignored or mostly does not fulfill the least necessities. To comply with standards in places which are designed for the visually impaired people may be vital cause of visually impaired users who are different from other disability groups in terms of the needs and requirements and usage patterns of perception. The study is based on the lack of practice or misapplication of the accessibility standards may result in the restriction of accessing to the services which are even particularly offered for their own interest. In this study, in order to create a theoretical background, it is devoted to definitions and concepts of visual impairment on the literature. The literature of visual impairment is examined in the context of different disciplines to sustain the theoretical background for the accessibility standards for the places which are designed for visually impaired person. The minimum requirements of accessibility standards are defined as the architectural design criterias for an independent living for visually impaired people. In this context, the scope of the study is defined as the libraries for visually impaired people which would be evaluated according to the accessibility standards. The examples of libraries from Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir are observed and examined through the evaluation forms which are prepared on the basis of architectural design criterias for the visually impaired person. As a result of the data obtained from the samples are examined according to compatibility and incompatibility with the accessibility standards are presented in the final section. In conclusion, Overall results and specific recommendations are presented for all research areas.