Home Sweet Home - with Stumbling Blocks

 
Barrier free toilet with barriers
© Oliver Paul

It is not just a problem with the bathroom or the entrance - people with a disability may have problems everywhere in their own home. A recent study points out the urgent need to act in order to make houses and public buildings barrier free.

Ten percent said that they could not move around their own flat without problems due to age or mobility. That was the result of a pan-european study called LARES (Large Analysis and Review of Housing and Health Status).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) ordered the enquiry about the status of homes and health within eight European countries - the expertise center "Barrier free Planning and Building” of Technische Universität Berlin accomplished the task. In doing so they concluded further: Nearly three-fourths of all flats and buildings were not accessible without problems for people with a disability.

Regarding the results of the study. the expertise centre in Berlin and its concept are up-to-date since they want to senstise designers, architects and urban planner for the topic of barrier free living. All through Europe there exists one university in the Netherlands that concerns itself with this subject, which stresses the need to add courses concerned with barrier free living in university education.

The LARES study points out that it is urgently needed to create a barrier free environment. The proportion of people with disabilities is going to rise continuously in the future since the western countries are made up of an ageing society.

- The link to the German website of the expertise center is: www.kompetenzzentrum.de