Evaluating the Accessibility to High-Rise Residential Buildings Case of Gurugram

Abstract

There has been an alarming boost in the urban population of India since 1991, according to the Census of India. To manage and accommodate this population, a lot of High-Rise buildings are being constructed in the country. People are also shifting from Low-Rise buildings to High-Rise buildings because of many reasons, such as higher security, availability of amenities and daily essentials in proximity, a good private-public life balance, etc. In India, there are a lot of people with some kind of disability, it can be either permanent or temporary. The disability can be either physical or mental, but in this paper, the main focus is on the physical disabilities of an individual. Even the elderly people fall into the category of disabled to some extent as with ageing they tend to lose their sight, hearing capacity, etc. People with disabilities have limited access all around the city and are mostly confined within the walls of their houses. The problem arises when even the building or townships where they reside does not provide them with the freedom to roam around freely or to perform their daily chores independently. According to the Census of India 2011, the elderly population of India is expected to increase at an alarming rate from 2011 to 2036, i.e., from 8.4% to 15%. This will result in a steady increase in the percentage of people with disabilities in the country, as of now which is 2.21%. (Census 2011) As the percentage increases, it will become hard for people and the government to avoid these people as this has been happening for a lot of years. This will put pressure on the Architect/builder to provide a barrier-free environment in their high-rise townships. In this paper, a comparative study was done between the NBC (National Building Code) guidelines, Harmonised guidelines (HG), and the guidelines provided by the ADA (American Disability Act) to understand where the problem is situated. Many-a-times the user response is more important than the government-provided guidelines, hence, a brief questionnaire was prepared and circulated amongst the residents of such townships who have some kind of disability, and also, first-hand analysis of the building was done by actually walking on the path and figuring out the problems which a disabled person might face in his/her day-to-day lives. Once these problems were identified, they were compared to the government-provided guidelines. After that, some issues were identified as the common problems in most high-rise buildings, approaching or solving these problems can help in providing a barrier-free environment for People with Disabilities.