ACCESSIBILITY SEEN AS A QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE : A SHOPPING MALL IN ORCHARD ROAD

Abstract

This thesis project examines the effect on local shopping mall architecture when the design concept of accessibility is used. However, the approach to accessibility is to see it as a quality of experience as opposed to a purely logistical one, that of admittance or mere compliance to provision codes for the disabled. Despite the disabled physical disabilities, they too have the same social and psychological needs as any able-bodied person. In the design of the built environment, the fulfillment of these needs must be considered, supported by the necessary provisions of physical cues to the disabled compensatory skills in dealing with the physical environment. Therefore, the core of this design concept is about human experience of the built environment unbiased by any social values and norms. To understand the human experience of the built environment, the concept of archetypal place is used which links human experience with the environment of that experience. A set of criteria is created which gives depth to the inquiries into the psychosocial matrix of disabilities thereby formulating a conceptual framework that will demonstrate accessibility in all aspects of the design of the built environment. The scenario drawn up for this purpose of formulating an architectural solution to accessibility is to design a shopping mall cum office tower at Somerset site in Orchard Road. Departmental stores will be employing both able and disabled people. The anchor tenant is the NTUC supermarket. The office tower's main anchor tenant is the National Council of Social Services and occupied by other charitable organisations. Other issues that are involved as a result of the project being an urban infill are 1. street-life 2. facade response 3. mediation of scales to adjoining buildings A walk down Orchard Road ............... A Main Street by any definitions. Paris has its Champ Elysees, New York has her Wall Street. Singapore has Orchard Road. A place that Singaporeans and tourists frequent for lots of shopping for necesscities, latest fashions and fashions accessories, electronic goods, movies, partying into the night in discotheques, pubs and lounges at exorbitant prices. A place for people watching. Youths in the latest local fashions and trendy clothings ply the street, a gathering place for Filipinos working in Singapore. People from all walks of life garther here for work and play ? Where are the disabled and the elderly? They have been left out along with the National Council of Social Service at a inconspicious plot of land near Orchard Road. Why don't they frequent this place'! Is it possible for them to do so? with the existence of physical barriers to their mobility, lack of adequate transportation catering to them and our sympathatic eye which is patronising at time and our lack of tolerance because of our lack of constant contact with them leading to the exaggeration of the “difference" between us and them? Is it because the collective attitude of wider society towards the worth and value of them has yet to be put to the test ? The truth is the built environment which is a reflection of this collective attitude has failed the test and been found wanting in our moral standard while in our pursuit for excellence in economic development stability in government and a higher standard of living. These however has been tested and not found to be wanting. Would this collective attitude be the reason for our Prime Minster to want ''Capitalism with a Heart" in our Next Lap continuing towards excellence or the alarming increase in the ageing population by the 21st century? Where will be that Heart in Orchard Road then?