How buildings, housing, roads and facilities are planned and built can obstruct or enable access, participation and inclusion of ALL members of society, not just persons with disabilities. Accessible physical environments increase safety, convenience and comfort for the average person, including children, aging senior citizens, pregnant women and persons with temporary illness or impairment.

However, for persons with disabilities, accessible, barrier-free and universally-designed environments are essential to our independence, social participation, quality of life, living with dignity, as well as living safely within our community.

Unfortunately, persons with disabilities often, if not always, experience multiple barriers navigating and being in physical environments, such as:

• Difficulty to move safely from one place to another, including residential homes, public buildings and communal spaces such as public parks and religious houses. Examples of unsafe situations are: uneven pedestrian pavements, pavements with uncovered sinkholes, revolving doors, non-compliant ramps, pedestrian paths blocked by vehicles or stalls.
• Difficulty to move safely within residential homes, public buildings and communal spaces.
• Having no choice but to use inaccessible and unhygienic toilets, and at times unable to access toilets at all.
• Getting caught in emergency situations due to inaccessible emergency alerts and evacuation plans.
• Difficulty perceiving sensory information due to environmental setting, such as sound echoes, overly bright fluorescent lighting, overly dim lighting, flashing LED lights, unpredictable loud noise (e.g., air hand dryers, vacuum cleaners).
• Difficulty exercising or playing in their residential community's leisure and sports facilities.

Accessibility in built environment is a lot more than making physical environments accessible or barrier-free to wheelchair-users, it also involves designing and building for people who are Blind and Visually Impaired, Deaf and Hard-of-hearing, persons with weak muscles or limited manual dexterity, persons with cognitive disabilities, persons with visual perception difficulties (depth and contrast) and individuals with sensory processing issues.

It is not enough to add disabled-friendly equipment or accessories. What is most important is that the physical environment is usable by everyone with ease, including elderly persons.

Accessibility in the Home Environment

Built environment accessibility is especially important in residential homes and housing for persons with disabilities. Barrier-free housing environment is essential to enable persons with disabilities and others to live safely, independently and stress-free, which can significantly impact a person’s physical and mental health, employment status, and to some extent, status of poverty.

Unfortunately, for many persons with disabilities, their homes were not built to be accessible. Although modifying their existing home environment is essential, it is unattainable for many persons with disabilities and their families due to the high costs of redesigning and remodelling works. This is especially true for persons with disabilities or families with persons with disabilities in poverty.

Hence, it is crucial to design, build, and modify ALL built-environments, i.e., buildings, residential homes, roads and pavements, facilities, amenities and services, to be accessible and barrier-free. Whether it is designing for accessibility from the beginning or retrofitting and modifying existing built environment to make it more accessible, the long term benefits to the whole of society outweighs the cost of making such adjustments.

Accessibility of Built Environment in Malaysia: Legislation and Standards.

Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act 2008 section 26(1) states that:

Persons with disabilities shall have the right to access to and use of, public facilities, amenities, services and buildings open or provided to the public on equal basis with persons without disabilities, but subject to the existence or emergence of such situations that may endanger the safety of persons with disabilities.

However, the PWD Act did not make the same provision for accessibility to housing and residential homes.

Uniform Building By-Laws (Amendment) 1991 (UBBL) 34A

In the Uniform Building By-Laws (Amendment) 1991 (UBBL) 34A, it is statutory for buildings to provide access to enable people with disabilities to get into, out of and within the buildings. Building owners and local authorities that did not comply with the UBBL can be fined. The UBBL 34A applies also to residential buildings except single family private houses.

However, there is still a lack of serious and committed enforcement of the UBBL 34A, the effect of which are seen and experienced by many of us, whether disabled or not, in our surrounding environment.

Basic requirements of accessible building design are detailed in the set of guidelines under Malaysian Standard Code of Practice on Access for Disabled Persons (MS), i.e.:

1. Malaysian Standard 1184:2014, Universal design and accessibility in the built environment – Code of practice (Second Revision)
2. Malaysian Standard 1183:2015, Fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings – Code of practice (First revision)
3. Malaysian Standard 1331:2003, Code of Practice for Access for Disabled Persons Outside Buildings (First Revision)

Making Residential Homes (Housing) Accessible and Inclusive

Housing developers, contractors, builders, managers, maintenance skilled workers, and residential committees need to understand and implement barrier-free design in residential homes for all persons. Accessible housing is not only essential and necessary for persons with disabilities, but also for every person who plans to live safely and comfortably in their homes until old age.

An accessible home built with universal design principles may include, but are not limited to:

• Widened and step-free doorways into the house unit and all rooms, including bathroom.
• Adequate floor space for sufficient turning radius for wheelchairs in all areas, including kitchen and bathroom.
• Slip-resistant and durable flooring.
• Lowered kitchen counters and sinks, with clear space underneath for seated access.
• Pull-out shelving for low-level storage, or pull-down shelving for overhead storage.
• Use of colour or texture contrast where appropriate, e.g., transition between spaces, on the edges of walls, flooring or staircases, toilet seats, switches.
• Installing grab bars in the shower and beside the toilet (wash closet - WC).
• Even lighting that minimises shadows and glare, especially in bathrooms, doorways and pathways.
• Installing switches, power points, circuit breakers and doorbell buttons at lower heights reachable from a seated position.
• Audio and visual alerts for safety and security features such as smoke detection, security alarm and emergency alert.