The Spatial Experience Of the Mentally Challenged In a Barrier Free Environment

Abstract

There is a direct and robust interaction between the human and the built environment, how human perceive, respond, adapt and react toward it, depends on the physiological, psychological and sociological human needs. The built environment is the all the surrounding human -made, to be used by human to facilitate and ease their life and fulfill their needs, according to their different abilities, needs and necessities, it depends on the perception and cognition abilities, the behaviour, the social and the culture within the built environment, and all the barriers facing them within their life and within their society. It had a great influential on the human’s behaviour, adaption and integration within the community. Humans are different and there had diversity in their needs and necessities and range from one to another according to several aspects, their physical and mental abilities and their essentials and needs. According to Lang, it is important to be informed from the relation between the humans and their needs and the physical environment while designing the built environment which can afford their needs.1 Disability is part of the human circumstance, everyone can be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in their life. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of person with Disabilities (CRPD) states that “The disability results from the interaction between persons with impairment and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. In 2006, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities (CRPD) aims to “promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.”2 The mentally challenged are classified as a disabled human characterized by significantly impaired cognitive and mental functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviours, and the IQ of the mentally challenged is below 70, and they are categorized into four levels according to

1 Lang, J., creating architectural theory: The role of the behavioural sciences in environmental design, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1987. 2 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Geneva, United Nations, 2006,