Designers' Attitudes Towards Disabled People and the Compliance of Public Open Places: The Case of Istanbul

Although accessibility has become one of the major concerns in both urban design and architecture, many urban facilities are still non-compliant with accessibility standards. This paper aims to assess designers' attitudes towards disabled people in Istanbul and to test their responses by determining the compliance with access standards for Istanbul's public open places. The study used the United Nations implementation checklist on accessibility, which covers 19 items of 4 main groups. Data were collected at four crowded public squares of old and new centres of Istanbul chosen randomly. The highest compliance was found in Kadikoy square (39%), whereas the lowest was found in Besiktas (26.3%). To assess designers' knowledge of disabled people's needs, a questionnaire was presented to 114 architects and contractors. Data showed that the majority of them did not learn about disabled people's needs in the physical environment during their professional education and that in their projects today, they provide accessible environments only for wheelchair users. In short, due to gaps in the system that educates professional designers and the absence of enforcement, the examined open public squares in Istanbul have accomplished very little in terms of accessibility for disabled people.