Civil Engineering and Architecture Vol. 12(4), pp. 2705 - 2730
DOI: 10.13189/cea.2024.120416
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Beyond Sight: Designing Inclusive Kindergarten Outdoor Spaces for Visually Impaired Children

Yara Hesham ^1,2,*, Yasser Mansour ¹, Doaa K. Hassan ^1
1 Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Egypt
² Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Misr International University, Egypt

ABSTRACT

Outdoor spaces, which are often designed with a focus on visual perception, have their barriers towards certain people with different capabilities, especially the visually impaired, who find it difficult to deal in such visually biased spaces. Addressing the visually impaired at an early age can help them face struggles and spatial barriers to be able to integrate normally into the society. Kindergarten outdoor spaces are important as they provide these children with concrete experiences from which they can learn about the world. They need to go beyond focusing on visual sense by being inclusively designed using the multi-sensory approach, which is used to increase spaces' experiential values, allowing children to use them freely and independently. The study seeks to shed light on the importance of incorporating multi-sensory approach in developing kindergarten outdoor spaces for visually impaired children. The proposed methodology involved analyzing and linking aspects, such as visual bias in architecture, kindergarten outdoor space design, visually impaired children's perceptions and difficulties and multi-sensory approach, to better understand inclusive design concepts. A rubric was then compiled from these theoretical aspects to link outdoor space elements with the five human senses. Hence, exploring the Case Study of "Hazelwood School for the Blind", using the rubric, was made to examine how its elements were utilized to create optimum sensory outdoor spaces experienced through all senses. Results showed that it is extremely important to utilize multi-sensory approach to help architects develop optimal design strategies for inclusive kindergarten outdoor spaces. The resulting holistic spaces, designed specially to address visually impaired children, can act as great means of introducing them to richer experiences. They additionally help them overcome their barriers and difficulties, and enhance their senses, spatial perceptions, navigation and cognitive mapping processes.

KEYWORDS
Kindergarten, Outdoor Spaces, Visually Impaired Children, Multi-Sensory Approach, Inclusive Design

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Yara Hesham , Yasser Mansour , Doaa K. Hassan , "Beyond Sight: Designing Inclusive Kindergarten Outdoor Spaces for Visually Impaired Children," Civil Engineering and Architecture, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 2705 - 2730, 2024. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2024.120416.

(b). APA Format:
Yara Hesham , Yasser Mansour , Doaa K. Hassan (2024). Beyond Sight: Designing Inclusive Kindergarten Outdoor Spaces for Visually Impaired Children. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 12(4), 2705 - 2730. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2024.120416.