Abstract

The research deals with accessibility in Urban Space from two perspectives that have not yet been combined, in spite of their long being inseparable parts of the discussion, research and

applicable principles in the planning of urban space: on one side, accessibility for people with special needs and on the other the theory of Space Syntax.

Accessibility for people with disabilities was first defined in Israel, in the Law of Equal Rights for People with Disabilities. From this law: The purpose of this law is to defend the honor

and freedom of a person with disabilities, to anchor his right for active and equal participation in society and all walks of life, and also to provide fitting answers for his special needs

enabling him to gain maximum independence, privacy and respect, while enabling fruition of his complete abilities.

Space Syntax, based on Graphic Theory and aided by intensive mathematical calculations is the quantitative solving of the phenomenology of pedestrian movement in built-up space by

the morphology of space, and there is therefore correlation between it and the day to day situations linking place and morphology to the functioning of a unit in space.

The principles of Space Syntax deal with "Intelligibility" – to what extent, can the whole space, be understood from its components; to its continuity of usage – to what extent are pockets

of disuse, or decrease in use, created. Space Syntax enables a quantitative and accurate expression of the configuration of a space unit within its relevant surrounding context. E.g. a room

in a building, a garden in a neighborhood or a road section in a town. This is the "amount of integration" that quantifies the connection of the unit under scrutiny to the others, on the

background of all the connections of all units to each other. It also enables scrutiny of whole morphological surroundings (structure, neighborhood), and within them the parts with most

potential and with least potential from the point of view of lucidity and continuous usage.

The need for objective establishment of accessibility in a built or open space stems from existing situations in reality. Evaluation of accessible places is done by the application of laws and

regulations that give a minimal answer to the presence of accessibility but do not ensure the principles that the law provides for, which are equality and human respect. As a result of the

failure to ensure these principles the estimation of accessibility is subjective and meets low requirements.

The research is focused only on the population of people with physical, motoric disabilities and answers the following questions: Do systems exist for the evaluation of the quality of

accessibility in complex spaces? What is the meaning of accessibility for people with disabilities? How can Space Syntax be used to create a system for the evaluation of accessibility in

complex spaces? The purpose of this research is to present a way of bridging the application of the "Law of equal rights for people with disabilities" and the spirit of the law, by the

creation of a metric for the evaluation of accessibility in complex spaces.

In the first part of the research existing systems were studied from written sources. After studying existing systems, the theory of Space Syntax was chosen as the most appropriate tool for

the evaluation of accessibility. Learning the Space Syntax program, that was developed from the theory, was begun. In parallel a study of the attitudes of people with disabilities to the

creation of equal environments by a number of in-depth interviews was made.

Two test cases were chosen in the second part of the research for testing the proposed approach and Space Syntax was applied in order to identify the relevant metrics for the evaluation of

accessibility in buildings. In parallel the meaning of accessibility for wheelchair users and how they perform in the buildings was again studied by observation and area interviews.

Analysis via Space Syntax is appropriate for the evaluation of accessibility of the interviewees in the test cases and it can also be summarized that Space Syntax is a suitable tool for the

evaluation of the quality of accessibility in complex spaces. The analysis and the interviews strengthened our assumption and proved that we have a new tool for the evaluation of

accessibility of people with disabilities.