A study on people with disabilities needs and problems in Tehran urban parks with Design perspective

As many international health and rehabilitation institutes have declared, disability is an undeniable part of human life and almost all people temporarily or permanently will be impaired at some point in their life. Disability is a universal experience with economic and social costs to individuals, families, communities and nations. Accordingly, Universal Design, as a Design approach, refers to broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to older people, people without disabilities, and people with disabilities. The center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University expounds seven principles for Universal Design as: Equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. According to the Universal Design mentioned principles, creating appropriate spaces and infrastructures in cityscape without any discrimination in use for all segments of the society, is one of the necessities of socially sustainable city. This kind of cities, are accessible and are responsive to all citizens’ needs and are welcoming to all people regardless of their limitations and disabilities. Based on official statistics and the same as WHO declared for whole world, in Iran notable amount of population have partial or serious disabilities and most of them have significant problems in city scape for satisfying their basic needs. With these in mind, the aim of this study is investigating and documentation of problems, needs and wants of people with disability in Tehran city parks in order to adjust the parks, their playgrounds and equipment appropriately with their limitations by Design thinking process. Also based on the extracted needs and problems, some design guidelines for urban parks were developed and declared in this paper. To achieve the intended objectives, the field studies and collaborative methods such as observation, ethnography, questionnaires and body-storming was used. The mentioned methods helped authors for deep understanding of needs and requirements of people with disability for equitable usage of the city spaces and its equipment. The obtained results of this study showed that psychological and mental problems for people with disability which is resulted by their absence in the public area and consequently their huge wasted free times inside their homes, and also the discrimination in access and usage of the urban spaces and playgrounds are the most important problems of people with disability in cityscape which could be resolved or reduced by design thinking process. The results of this study, categorized by authors in four main categories as mental health problems, way-finding issues, access needs, and easy usage requirements which are presented in this paper as a graphical model. The mentioned outcomes of the study could be used as an input via other designers and help them in order to design and develop some Design projects for people with disability in urban parks by universal design approach. For satisfying this aim, the mindset change between National City executive boards is necessary from designing city for just an average men or women, to design it for all.