WEEK 4 COMMENT PAPER

The built environment as disabling

French, S. (1993). What’s So Great About Independence? Disabling Barriers:
Enabling Environments, 45-48.
Gleeson, B. (1999). Can Technology Overcome The Disabling Society?
Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairments and Disability, 98-118.
Imrie, R. (1998). Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment.The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives, 129-146.

Independence is generally something persons with a disability or an impairment desire more than anything else. However, is there such a thing as being too independent? This issue is brought up in many ways in Sally French’s article What’s So Great About Independece? She profoundly describes independence and how too much of it may create such consequences for disabled people such as, restricting their lives rather than enriching them. During her time as an assistant housemother in a residential school for multiple disabled children, she witnessed a young boy trying to remove his socks off for a period of 15 minutes which he was eventually successful in doing so after rubbing his ankles together. She argues how even though independence may be important to most able-bodied persons, it may be an intolerable chore for persons with an impairment. Writers such as Shearer and Sutherland argue that insisting independence for people with an impairment may also be considered as a form of oppression. Since persons with a disability may already be slower than others at completing such tasks, it is nonetheless necessary to prolong their task by expecting them to be fully independent. French also discusses on the topic of technology. She states that even though technology may speed things up for persons with an impairment, it may isolate them as well since they are fully dependent on technology as opposed to asking for assistance and creating interpersonal relationships.

In contrast to the statement which Sally French makes about how technology may reinforce the isolation of persons with a disability, Brendon Gleeson’s article argues that technology may in fact be a cure for their disability as these ‘rehabilitating’ forces will help disabled people overcome the socio-economic ‘handicaps’ they face. Gleeson believes that technological invasion may help persons with a disability become ‘socially accepted’ and may also help turn the disabled person into a ‘normal’ citizen or worker.

Gleeson also argues that the physical layouts of societies discriminates against persons with an impairment as they do not take into consideration their mobility requirements. According to him, there are three answers in which architects do not take into consideration their mobility requirements, which are: the natural limits, the thoughtless design, and the historical-geographic construction. As described in his article, the natural limits and the thoughtless design share the same importance for environmental modifications to buildings and access routes. However, the historical-geographic construction does not agree with relying exclusively on environmental modifications.

Similar to Gleeson’s article, Rob Imrie’s Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment also discusses on the topic of persons with an impairment and how they face many challenges when it comes to their surrounding environments. He argues how most built environments discriminate against persons with an impairment due to the fact that they do not take into consideration bodily differences when they are building their facilities. In his article, he uses the example of clothes retailers and how most of them only have a restricted amounts of changing facilities for people in wheelchairs. Mcglynn and Murrain argue how architects have a restricted understanding of bodily differences and do not consider mobility requirements, which therefore, create an alienating environment for people with impairments. According to Imrie, this type of architecture is also known as a non-contextual architecture, where buildings are strictly built to express function and structure.

I personally believe that environments should be built for both able-bodied persons, as well as persons with impairments. By failing to do so, exclusion and segregation arises, which create an unhealthy, negative surrounding for those with impairments. Fortunately, according to the articles which I’ve read and described briefly up above, there have been an increase of buildings and facilities taking into consideration people’s mobility requirements. Since there has been an increase of buildings taking into consideration people’s mobility requirements as they build their facilities, we are able to observe how many buildings include ramps for persons in a wheelchair, as well as more elevators and handicap bathroom stalls. I believe that our society is on the right path in creating a more inclusive and healthy environment for all, especially for those with impairments, and I strongly hope that our society will continue to evolve into a community where persons with impairments feel socially accepted, just as they should.