Analysis of Accessibility of Green Spaces in Tehran for People with Limited Movement with an Emphasis on the Concept of Universal Design

Urban parks have a great impact on people’s physical and mental health. Today, despite the global importance of inclusive design, research, and related criteria in Iran, people with limited mobility are less present in parks due to the unavailability of parks. It seems that this issue is due to insufficient technical knowledge of designers, supervisors of urban and civil designers, disregard for the rules and also ignorance of the physical condition of people with limited mobility. Research

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accessibility of parks in Tehran for people with physical limitted. This evaluation is done with an emphasis on the concept of inclusive design so that all people, regardless of their physical abilities, can benefit from the facilities and equipment available in the parks.Research

First, through theoretical studies, the characteristics and limitations of movement of different people in society were identified. Then the physical and non-physical principles of the concept of inclusive design were examined.. In the next step, the equipment in the parks was identified and the availability indicators were determined by the experts. In the third stage, a case study evaluation checklist was prepared and completed through a survey. Data analysis by Delphi method and the results, after extracting points and weighting options through Excel, were plotted and analyzed.

The results show that several factors cause the unaccessibility of parks that are effective in the design, implementation and operation stages.. The most important of these factors are ignoring the principles of inclusive design, ignoring design criteria for people with physical disabilities, lack of knowledge and sufficient technical knowledge of contractors in the correct implementation of projects, and creating secondary obstacles after implementation due to improper management.