Architectural needs in housing for people with disabilities

Abstract

Housing represents encounter, memories and security, but for people with disabilities some of its characteristics can become barriers to its full use. If disability is considered to be a poor relationship between environment and capacity. Housing may be inaccessible for this group of people. Based on the components of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, of the World Health Organization, and the application of 16 semi-structured interviews, this research analyzed the architectural barriers and identified the needs faced by people with Alzheimer, Parkison, blindness, children on the autism spectrum, the elderly, wheelchair users and people with deafness in relation to carrying out general tasks and demands, communication, mobility, self-care and domestic life inside the homes. Among the spaces with the greatest barriers are the bathroom and the kitchen for most of the cases analyzed. On the other hand, various strategies were observed that the interviewees use to cope with these barriers and increase their well-being or reduce the risks in the activities of daily living inside the dwellings.