Access for All: Approaches to the Built Environment

Access and accessibility are central themes in architecture and urbanism. The goal is to make buildings accessible both horizontally and vertically, as well as to provide them with technical infrastructure. But the aim is also to ensure the accessibility of whole streets, routes, parks, and squares, and even entire cities and regions. Today, access is a key concept in the most disparate areas of life. Thus, it is also a matter of access to knowledge and education, access to knowledge media like the Internet, access to healthcare, access to languages, etc. In thirteen articles, this book deals with this world of access in architecture, city planning, and neighboring fields. Topics include ensuring the accessibility of entire urban areas, renewing that of areas that were previously utilized differently, including the general populace in concept planning, and how architecture can help provide access to a better quality of life.

Access and accessibility are central themes in architecture and urbanism. The goal is to make buildings accessible both horizontally and vertically, as well as to provide them with technical infrastructure. But the aim is also to ensure the accessibility of whole streets, routes, parks, and squares, and even entire cities and regions. Today, access is a key concept in the most disparate areas of life. Thus, it is also a matter of access to knowledge and education, access to knowledge media like the Internet, access to healthcare, access to languages, etc. In thirteen articles, this book deals with this world of access in architecture, city planning, and neighboring fields. Topics include ensuring the accessibility of entire urban areas, renewing that of areas that were previously utilized differently, including the general populace in concept planning, and how architecture can help provide access to a better quality of life.

Wolfgang Christ is Professor of Design and City Planning 1 at the Faculty of Architecture at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Since 1980, he has also worked as an independent architect and town planner. He is the author of numerous publications, including Bilder einer Zwischenstadt. Ikonografie und Szenografie eines Urbanisierungsprozesses (Images of Urban Sprawl: The Iconography and Scenography of an Urbanization Process, 2006).