“The Crisis” That Architecture Does Not Want To See: Disability

"Disability studies", which emerged in the world in the 1970s and 1980s and turned into a common study area of different disciplines especially in the 2000s, claims that the consideration of the people with disability in social life should be accepted as a right issue. The issue of disability has been shaped by the field of medical sciences for many years and has been defined as 'disease and deficiency' for many years. However, approach of social sciences to the issue of transforming disabled bodies into a problematic through sociality and questioning the institutions, spaces and standards that create impediments have enabled the transformation of the literature in this field. Disability issue in Turkey, especially in the field of architecture, has remained under the determination of the “medical model” and has been accepted as a “disability” and a “personal tragedy”. However, researches of Dikmen Bezmez, Sibel Yardımcı and Yıldırım Şentürk in social sciences and studies of Ezgi Tuncer in the field of architecture has contributed to questioning of the issue critically. In this study, the issue of disability is examined under different topics and it is claimed that the discipline of architecture interprets the issue of disability as a crisis that does not want to see. It is inevitable to encounter problems while using the spaces (houses, schools, offices, stores, public buildings, bus stations, subway stations, squares, avenues, parks, streets, pavements, parking lots, landscapes et cetera) produced by defining the user with the assumptions of “normal, healthy, young et cetera” concepts. The effects of social practices, standards, modernist architects such as Le Corbusier in perpetuating the disabling spaces and the processes of exclusion of people with disability from spaces – built environment are revealed. In the field research part of the study, the Van Yüzüncü Yıl University Faculty of Architecture and Design building was examined. In addition, it is argued that the discipline of architecture should play a new role in terms of both the language it uses and approach beyond the accessibility of the people with disability to the spaces.