Sholeh Nozari - Academic member of Road, Housing and Urban Development Research Center(BHRC), Architect and Ph. D. student in NAZAR Research Center for Art, Architecture and Urbanism

People with physical and movement disabilities must be able to fulfill their own requirements through barrier-free access to official buildings. Adaptation of official buildings and up-grading of accessibility situations is now considered as the most important priority in building improvement projects. The official buildings must be gradually adapted according to the requirements of disabled people. Adaptation is defined as removing the existing physical, architectural and traffic barriers in the spaces and also to improve the environment in a way that all people can move freely and safely in the environment. The present paper is carried out the results of a research project Adaptation Methods of Official Buildingsfor People with Physical and Movement Disabilities . The project is accomplished in Building and Housing Research Center (BHRC), which is based on field surveys, literature studies, and participant observation.The basic approach is to search for the building obstacles that cause barriers for disabled people. In another words, due to expectations from existing official buildings, the problems and shortages facing visitors are identified. Some official buildings which are visited by many people every day are selected for field studies. This part of project was done by asking the disabled to fill up questionnaires about their accessibility problems.The main objective of this paper is adaptation and organization of the present situation of official buildings for all, specially disabled people. Consequently, these groups of people would be able to obtain a reasonable rate of social independence.

Disabled, official buildings, adaptation, accessibility