1.Study Background and Purpose
This study aims at probing into‘2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design’, and focuses on ruminating over the differences between America’s and Taiwan’s concepts of laws on access-free buildings, legal systems and methods of execution.
The contents of America’s related standards are worthy of analyzing and learning from,because America values the security of human rights, and that Taiwan had referred to America’s past versions of ‘ADA standards for accessible design’ when setting its ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’. The ADA standards for accessible design had been drastically amended and the interpretations of contents of the laws and advises were added in the 2010 version.
The purposes of this study are as follows:
(a)Analyze the evolutions of Taiwan’s regulations of access-free buildings and current related problems.
(b)Analyze America’s mindset behind erecting ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’ and its evolutions and methods of execution.
(c)Analyze the structure and contents of ‘ADA Standards for Accessible Design’.
(d)Propose suggestions regarding revising Taiwan’s ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’ for the central authorities to think over when making revisions. (e) Propose suggestions for future revisions of Taiwan’s laws and regulations of access-free buildings (divided by buildings and activity zones) through analyzing America’s standards for accessible design.
2.Methodology and study process
(A)Methodology
(a)Archival Research on Documents
This study gathers researches and papers on other countries’ important regulations of access-free environments, and majorly focuses on analyzing the mindsets behind erecting ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’, its evolutions and methods of execution,the law articles of ‘ADA Standards for Accessible Design’ and the law articles of Taiwan’s ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities, Access-free, Building Acts’. This study also refers to the related regulations of access-free buildings of UK and Japan, and then proposes suggestions for revision of the regulations and analyzes the interviews and meetings with the experts.
(b)The Interviews with the Experts
Representatives from public sectors and experts and scholars of access-free buildings are invited to participate in the investigations and raise opinions in meetings. And in individual interviews, the researcher exchanges opinions with the participants regarding the topic of research, structure, orientations and suggestions for revision of the regulations so as to rethink how the related laws shall be amended.
(c)Site Investigations of In-situ Public Buildings
The researcher analyzes Taiwan’s current issues regarding regulations of access-free buildings and aspects of revision based on his experiences of conducting in-situ site investigations for the projects of ‘Supervision of Barrier-free Access in Public Buildings’ while working at Construction and Planning Agency Ministry of the Interior in the past four years.
(d)Analyses on Taiwan’s Regulations of the accessibility of buildings and Legal Interpretations
Based on the researcher’s past experiences of participating in editing the law articles of ‘Alternative Improvement Plans for the Access-free Facilities in the Existing Public Buildings and Principles for Determining and ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’ in the tenth chapter of Building Technical Regulations and composing the legal interpretations when working at Construction and Planning Agency Ministry of the Interior,the researcher analyzes the legislative spirit of Taiwan’s law articles of regulations of access-free buildings and uses the results as reference when making comparisons with ‘ADA Standards for
Accessible Design’.
(B)Study Process
(a)Reviewing Existing Documents: This Study reviews documents related to four topics,including other countries’ regulations and policies of access-free buildings,background information and the developments of the concept of access-free environments,Taiwan’s and other counties’ literature on regulations of access-free buildings,analysis of other countries’ regulations of design of access-free buildings and Taiwan’s execution and regulations of access-free buildings.
(b)Defining Terminology: Controversial terms are analyzed and explained, including ADA
Standards for Accessible Design, people with disabilities, physically and mentally disabled citizens and public buildings.
(c)Analyzing the Features of Regulations of Domestic Access-free Buildings: Including UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Taiwan’s People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act and the regulations of access-free buildings and their structure and contents.
(d)Analyzing ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’: Including its legislative spirit,evolutions, methods of execution and main law articles in order to justify its significance and its revelatory influence on Taiwan’s regulations of access-free buildings.
(e)Analyzing ‘Americans with Disabilities Act: Analyzing the features and details of the act, including its standards for accessibility and its applicability in America’s state government and local governmental organizations and in public facilities and business facilities.
(f)Reviewing Interviews and Meetings with Experts: Proposing suggestions for amending the structure of Taiwan’s regulations of access-free buildings and for revising the language in design specifications of accessible and usable buildings and facilities.
(g)Present Study Result Final Report
3.Important Discoveries
(a)Examination of Taiwan’s Regulations of Access-free Buildings Issues with current related regulations include:
1.Access-free buildings and facilities of special uses.
2.New improvements of access-free facilities in existing public buildings.
3.The unishments for not building access-free facilities are not yet set.
4.Disputes over access-free facilities. 5.Intensity of emphasis on different levels of disability in design specifications of accessible and usable buildings and facilities.
5.Problems of integrating different interfaces of access-free facilities.
(b)Examination of the regulations in ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’
1.America’s federal law divides improvements of access-free buildings and environments into two parts: ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’ and ‘Fair Housing Act’ as building access-free facilities in residential buildings and public buildings are different and so every states set up its own laws to deal with the related issues.
2.Because of the influence of the Korean War, there were a huge number of veterans with disabilities who wanted to attend school or enter the job market again. With these intensive social needs and with the social background of the desire for fairness and anti-discrimination over races, genders and physical wholeness, America proposed the ‘American National Standard Specifications for Making Buildings and Facilities Accessible to and Usable by the Physically Handicapped’, and later put forward the ‘Rehabilitation Act, Section 504’ and set up committees so that every states could have this act as guidelines for instruction policies and building acts. Finally, America set up ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’ and the execution of building access -free environments could be put into practice with legal force and the basic human rights of the disabled were secured.
3.In ‘Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)’, the right of people with mental or physical disabilities to use public buildings and the principle of equal opportunities in every social fields, including employment, public services, transportation,communication, are emphasized. Its fundamental spirit was to realize individualism,which was to think of individual independence as top priority, and housing, community,public facilities and metropolitan transportation systems as social collective assets.Under these principles, America realized building access-free environments with laws with mandatory force.
4.In America’s general law that secures the rights of mentally and physically disabled people, the intention was to make sure they can access every building. With such motivation, America realized the promotion of access-free environments. Because the laws and regulations were set up in the background of securing the wholeness of human rights, they are of forceful legally binding force. The realistic legislation of the related regulations is appointed to states governments and every state would set up its own laws and regulations.
(c) Examination of ADA Standards for Accessible Design
1.ADA Standards for Accessible Design are divided into two scopes of applicability-the states and local governmental organizations and the public facilities and business facilities. Different from Taiwan, America uses the date when a construction starts as the way of differentiation and insists that the methods of improvement of access-free facilities being flexible and that past regulations no longer applicable.
2.America’s concept of ‘disproportionality’ puts forward that the top priorities are to provide access-free passages, avoid imposing economical burdens on the owners of buildings that needs improvements of access-free facilities and make sure that people with mentally or physically disabilities can access buildings.
3.America has set up detailed regulations focusing on the distinctiveness of state and local governmental organizations, newly built or changed public and business facilities so as to secure the completeness of access-free facilities, which is different from Taiwan’s design specifications of accessible and usable buildings and facilities.
4.‘ADA Standards for Accessible Design (2010)’ is divided into ten chapters by the categories of general and special buildings. ‘ADA Standards for Accessible Design (2010)’ emphasizes the establishments of communication facilities. Apart from facilities inside buildings, special regulations also apply to non-fixed facilities.
The standards focus specially on the regulation that large-scale sport arenas should scatter seats for disabled. Also the standards apply to recreational facilities such as amusement equipments, recreational boat-rowing facilities,fitness facilities and equipments, fishery piers and platforms, golf facilities, and swimming pools. Taiwan can learn from America’s experiences.
(d)Examination of revisions of Taiwan’s Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities Based on interviews and meetings with experts, this study re-examines the scopes of public buildings, and concludes that the establishment of access-free facilities should be flexible and consider constructing special access-free facilities in special public buildings. The study also proposes suggestions for revising the contents of ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’ regarding the establishments of special facilities in outdoor activity places inside boundary lines.
4.Suggestions and Strategies
Suggestion 1: The results of this study should be included into future revisions of ‘ Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’ : Short-Term Suggestion This study organizes revisions of ‘Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities’ by comparing America’s ADA Standards for Accessible Design and Taiwan’s Design Specifications of Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities. The results can be seen as referential data for central governmental organizations to consult when setting up related regulations.
Suggestion 2: The results of this study should be included into the contents of ‘ The Teaching Materials for Training Investigating Personnel of Establishments of Access-free Facilities in Buildings’in the future. : Short-Term Suggestion.
The contents of research on reviews of documents and on analysis of America’s regulations of access-free buildings of this study can be referential data for editing ‘The Teaching Materials for Training Investigating Personnel of Establishments of Access-free Facilities in Buildings’ in the future.
Suggestion 3: Regulations of access-free buildings can be divided into two categories of residential buildings and public buildings of other types: Medium and Long-Term Suggestion.
The needs of access-free facilities in residential and general public buildings are different. From analyzing the evolutions of Americans with Disabilities Act, this study discovers that , with careful considerations of the necessity, America separated the establishments of access-free facilities in residential buildings from those in other public buildings. In Taiwan, the Housing Act had been announced and put into force,and that there has been benefits given to owners of access-free residential buildings;however, related regulations of the establishments of access-free facilities in residential buildings are still not clear. The researcher suggests that in the future, Taiwan should divide its regulations of access-free buildings into two categories of residential buildings and public buildings of other types so that the policies as a whole can be executed more successfully.