Accessible Design and Visitability : Developing a concept for future home standards
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2021
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MACHINE-GENERATED SUMMARY NOTE : Although there has been no one architectural motif across the ages, the Roman architect and author Vitruvius conception of the homo bene figuratus, made famous by Leonardo da Vinci's drawing "The Vitruvian Man", has served as a model of tremendous longevity. In the 1950s, for example, the Swiss architect and urban planner Le Corbusier devised a system based on "human proportion" in the Vitruvian tradition which he called Modulor (Claus et al. 2008). In recent decades, these obviously notable contributions to architectural philosophy in their given epochs have been criticized, prominently because they were founded on an idealized "standard man" (Claus et al. 2008). For long, living spaces have been designed around this standard, but realistically only a small percentage of humans fit this ideal. Moreover, none can fit this standard for a lifetime (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs Office of Public Affairs [1988] 2000). At some point in their life, anybody could experience one or several temporary or permanently disabilities. In 2011 the World Health Organization published the first World Report on Disability stating more than 1 billion people, around 15% of the world population, live with some form of a disability. A number that is rapidly increasing partly due to population growth and aging, as well as accidents and injuries and an increase in chronic health conditions and medical advances (World Health Organisation 2020). To put it in a closer perspective, by now it is expected that one-fifth of the European population have some form of a disability ("Persons with Disabilities" n.d.). Thus, this idealized "standard"; young, fit and male, does not represent the majority when what it is made of is so narrow and the society is extremely diverse. And as mentioned in the previous paragraph, the world population is increasing, people live longer and medical advances have helped people survive permanently disabling accidents and illnesses. The composition of our population is changing. Therefore it would be reasonable that the living spaces built and designed to accommodate this population would likewise change (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs Office of Public Affairs [1988] 2000)