Abstract:
Designing for the disabled is about making
buildings accessible to and usable by people
with disabilities. Universal design is about
making buildings safe and convenient for all
their users, including people with disabilities.
A theme of this book is the similarities and
differences of the two, between their correspondences and affinities on the one hand, and
their discordancies and diverse methodologies
on the other.
In 1961, the year after my architectural
studies were completed and I had become a
registered architect, I was commisioned by the
Polio Reseach Fund in conjunction with the
Royal Institute of British Architects to undertake a reseach project whose aim would be the
production of a book to be called Designing
for the Disabled. It was a topic I knew nothing
about and one that at the time was nowhere
on the agenda of practising architects – the
idea that buildings ought as a matter of course
to be accessible to people with disabilities was
then unheard of. Professionally inexperienced
though I was, the credential I had which
appealed to those who appointed me was that
I was myself a person with a severe physical
disability, the consequence of acquiring a polio
virus in 1956.
First published in 1963 by RIBA
Publications, Designing for the Disabled
became a standard textbook for practising
architects. The second edition came in 1967,
and the third, a bulky book of more than 500
pages, in 1976. I was subsequently disinclined
to produce a fourth edition, first because it
would have been a daunting chore, and second
and more importantly, because I was troubled
by the ethos that the book reflected, th
