Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Access for disabled people in the outdoor environment is an important and accurate issue for landscape architects. The demands on public places are increasing and the aim is that everyone should be able to use the environment and be a part of the society. To enable this, landscape architects must put and extra effort to their design. This report shows examples from Uppsala Travel Centre where different ways of travelling meets in one place and many people pass on a daily basis. The area is newly built and should thereby represent modern solutions that enable access for disabled people. The purpose of this study has been to describe which solutions that has been used and discuss whether they meet the functional and aesthetic requirements from a landscape architect point of view. A limited area within the Uppsala Travel Centre has been studied where many different examples was found. The study also includes a research about the current Swedish law to get knowledge about the use of and demand on access solutions. Information about Uppsala Travel Centre and the different examples of access solutions has been gathered by a walk around the area together with one of the responsible architects. This method has enabled understanding for both the physical solutions as well as the thought behind them. To find out how well the solutions are working for the intended user information has been gathered from the local disability organization in Uppsala. It has been both through a discussion with representatives from the disability organization and via a document from a review of the Uppsala Travel Centre that was done during the summer 2010. In the result the solutions are grouped, described and has been analysed from a functional and aesthetic point of view. The study shows that there are many different kind of solutions to enable access that combines both functional and aesthetic values. In some cases the function is week in fortune of aesthetic values but there are also good examples in which function and aesthetic is combined, which add an additional value to the site.