Evaluation of Current Accessibility Implementations in Public Spaces in Turkey from Intellectual, Architectural, and Legal Aspects

Accessibility is among the central issues in national and international policies aimed at catering for a more democratic social life, since its achievement promotes the right to full participation in all public services and community life, to a significant extent. This study addresses architectural accessibility in presenting attitudinal, architectural, and legal aspects that are seen as inter-related contexts in assuring the inclusion of people in public life. The social theory of disability in the embodied notion of human right approach would influence considerably legislative arrangements which have played a key role in creating an inclusive physical and social environment for all. In Turkey, as architectural standards have not been appropriately applied in practice, and there have been no up-to-date applications of the standards in many parts of the built environment, people with disabilities are still disregarded, both in mainstream public life. Although there have been accessible design applications in some areas due to legal obligations, they remain insignificant, being specific case-based responses, and thereby fall short of providing unity and continuity in design implementations. Based on these circumstances, in Turkish sample, this study addresses how architecture and legal conventions respond to a significant transformation in disability approaches from broad-reaching human right aspect and consequently, succeed in inclusive public spaces.