Disabled Access – Best Practice Guidelines

Existing Irish Building Regulations do not provide guidelines for designing or adapting buildings to Universal Access standards. Universal accessibility is a concept that states that all environments should be accessible by everyone, regardless of ability (University of Ulster, 2003).

Technical Guidance Document M - Access for People with Disabilites (2000) of the Building Regulations is currently under review. For these reasons Configure rates and adapts buildings using the following Best Practice guidelines and publications

• Buildings for Everyone – Access and use for all citizens (National Disability Authority)
• Access Auditing of the Built Environment guidelines (National Disability Authority)
• British Standards Institute BS8300:2001 and BS5588
• The Disability Act 2005
• Part M of the Building Regulations (2000), Technical Guidance Document M (2000 edition)
• Access to the Historic Environment – Meeting the needs of Disabled People (Lisa Foster)
• The Accessible School - Universal Design for Educational Environments by Laural B. Bar , Dreyfuss Galluzzo Judith Galluzzo, Suzanne D. Sinift
• Centre for Accessible Environments (CAE) publications