Inclusive School Design for Children with Visual Impairment: The Relation between Design Guidelines and Spatial Perception

Abstract

Inclusivity is a design approach that aims to include everyone, specifically people who are excluded or marginalized, and giving them equal opportunities. Visually impaired children tend to suffer from physical barriers in schools, due to the existing architectural visual dominance. The main research problem is that the inclusive school design criteria usually address the aspects of safety and accidents avoidance, not giving enough attention to the spatial experience. In this study, the relation between existing inclusive school guidelines for the visually impaired and the visually impaired perceptual tools is analysed. The results show how the design criteria that depends on non-visual spatial design details affect the spatial perception of the visually impaired children, and the strength of relationship between the available guidelines and spatial perception. It also prioritizes the guidelines based on their importance in relation to the visually impaired perception. The results can help school designers to enhance the visually impaired spatial experience by knowing which perceptual attribute to address.