Guidelines for Accessible Parks with Emphasis on Human Factors

Ana Lúcia P. de Faria Burjato, Architect of Environment, Government Department of São Paulo, Brazil

What is necessary to a park be considered accessible?

To project Accessible Parks with emphasis on Human Factors, it's necessary to consider the desires and satisfactions of the users. It's not enough just built facilities to the access however, it's necessary that all people, including people with disabilities have what to do in the park. After a first visit to a park, people should have the wish to come back there another time, becoming a frequently park user.

Besides being possible to use or get to a park, the place has to be attractive with elements that can be used by children, elderly and people with disabilities. Then we can say that this is an Accessible Park, a place that reaches the Universal Design goals.

Accessible is a "Space, edification, furniture, urban equipment or element that can be reached, visited and used by any people, including the ones whit disabilities. The term accessible means as much physics accessibility as communication." (ABNT, 2004)

It's important to remember that when we use the expression including people with disabilities, intend to avoid the construction of spaces of segregation, because the projects of accessible parks supposes to include people with disabilities in the moments and places fated to leisure.

The actives related to leisure in public areas, must allow access for everybody independent of their social or economic conditions, increasing the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Public areas without using are a waste of publish money. The public resources would be better used if they were invested in Accessible Parks where, the amount of people could be large.

In the leisure the man can find himself, develop his personality, intelligence and social integration, breaking his own limits, experimenting the sensation of freedom in an activity where someone only searches for joy, rare thing to get in a routine job. (MEDEIROS,1975).

Few people has the luck to work with pleasure and for pleasure, in general just in their free time people can search for physical and mental recuperation, recovered by pleasure activities.

For children and young people the recreation and leisure help their physical, motor, emotional and social development. Help them to live with different people and out doors, improving their future ability to manage problems and situations.

The leisure in elderly people life's is important to fill the time, avoiding the loneliness felling, and prevent diseases.

"Human dimensions and capabilities as an evolving species - such as locomotion, sensation, expression of self, and territorial requirements - and all of the physiological, biological, and sociopsychological limitations of humankind must be established as the basis of the design." (PREISER, 1991).

A project of Accessible Parks involves:

Local analyses / Scale
Analyzing the relation of park to the near neighborhoods, for that it do not became an obstacle to the people that could use the park for their routes. People should be able to cross the area, instead having to go around it. The activities that take place in the park should not disturb the neighborhood; the park must be a pleasant area to have besides you. For that the scale of the park depends on the public transportation and how easy people can get to it.

Topography, soil and existing site resources
The natural characteristics need to be considered to plan the activities and facilities that will be built and developed. They condition where the activities are going to take place, as also the type of path, vegetation and constructions that will be in the park.

Programs / Plans
Do surveys about the users' desires to define the program and plans, balancing the desires and needs with the budget.

Enters / Shelters
They need to be in enough number to allow the public to get into, and near to accessible parking and public transportation stops. The installation of shelters and support urban equipment like, drinking fountain, public telephones, benches and tactile and visual signage are necessary for the users comfort.

Accessible routes / Circulation
The park should have a path that connects all the activities that are in the park. This path must be accessible in any weather condition and also by the wheelchair users, with tactile signage for blind people.

Facilities to Activities
The buildings and the facilities for sports, play, meetings, dating or meditation needs to be accessible. Therefore must be considered the largest needs for movements, as the case of wheelchair users and the restriction of reaches, also in the case of children. People with visual impairments must be considered to design the signage and the places of the tactile paths, which alert and guide them. Just as the use of sound signage when possible.

Natural Elements
The natural elements as sun, rain, wind, water, sand and fauna & flora have to be valued with the use of structures and vegetation that put on evidence the natural beauty of those elements.

Material
Proof vandalism appropriate structural, materials and equipment could make easier and cheaper the maintenance. Extending the durability of the facilities, improving the relation between the budget and the benefits.

Communication / Security / Post Use Assessment
The park administration needs to have a good relationship with the neighborhood community and the users in general. Improving the security and making a good channel with the community doing periodic surveys to feed back about the use and the wishes that the park user have.

The Environment Government Department of São Paulo is now administrating Villa-Lobos Park, in São Paulo. The Park has 400.000 m² open to the public, and is going to be worked to become an Accessible Park, following these items.

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