Applying the ADA: Designing for The 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design in Multiple Building Types

Introduction

More than 50 million Americans have some kind of physical, sensory, cognitive, or mental disability. The building industry, including design professionals, builders, and owners, has been addressing the elimination of architectural barriers for these disabled persons for many years. In 1973, The U.S. Access Board was created. Its purpose was to develop and enforce accessibility rules and guidelines and to assist the building industry in eliminating the barriers that still exist for the disabled citizens. The Access Board helped develop guidelines that describe which buildings and facilities have to be made accessible and how to achieve that accessibility. The guidelines for federal agencies and facilities was developed and is found in The Architectural Barriers Act (ABA), which was adopted in 1968. The rules and guidelines for private and nonfederal public entities were developed after that; they are found in the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), which were adopted in 1991 after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. After several years of receiving public comments, and internal deliberation about the contents and application, in 2004 the Access Board combined both sets of rules and reformatted them as a new version. Six years later, the Department of Justice adopted the 2004 ADAAG as the law of the land, and renamed it wthe 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. This book will discuss the new guidelines and will explain ...