Design professionals and the built environment: encountering boundaries 20 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act

Abstract

This article posits that although it has been 20 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a continuing tension remains between truly understanding and protecting the rights of people with disabilities and eliminating discrimination via the design of the built environment. Focus group and interview findings document the expressed and contradictory attitudes of practicing interior designers. This article demonstrates that although interior designers apply ADA design and construction guidelines as required by US laws and generally concede its universal benefits, the majority have not adopted the underlying spirit of the landmark civil rights law. Since interior designers ignore the essence of the ADA, the large scale use of non-discriminatory practices in the design of the built environment has progressed little during these two decades.

Keywords:

• interior design
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• disabilities
• built environment