Quote:
Originally Posted by Muta
As someone who works in the design and construction world, accessibility and inclusivity upgrades are becoming a very, very big (and good) thing (and high priority). There's so many buildings and facilities out there that require accessibility upgrades, it's nuts. The good thing is that accessibility consulting is now becoming the norm on design teams (whereas even five years ago it was rare), and in Canada designers can get their Rick Hansen accessibility certification, which is a qualification in modern accessible and inclusive design. The other good thing is that lots and lots of new infrastructure is getting built now with proper and sufficient accessibility and inclusivity features. It is being taken very seriously in this line of work.
|
Before becoming a Rick Hansen Certified Accessibility Certification professional, I was a wheelchair user for 18 years and studied Architectural Technology.
I shockingly learned a great deal from this training; how to design for vision loss and blindness, hearing loss and deafness, and some cognitive disabilities (this is where I am now focusing much of my research, it's a difficult area in universal/ inclusive design).
The current building code effectively only takes a physical disability into account and with that primary the aspects associated with a wheelchair user. The National Building Code - Alberta Edition which was adopted not too long ago had an opportunity to require CSA B651-18 Accessible design for the built environment to be required in certain circumstances, but it was omitted.
ACA legislation and associated design guidelines will put universal/ accessible/ inclusive design into action, at least for the proactive architect, developer, and publicly funded built environments.