The Popular Choice Awards

"WŁĄCZNIK" is the first one, non-profit, open-source publication about accessible design, made in cooperation with Fundacja Integracja, partners who care about people with disabilities and would like to promote an accessible design. “WŁĄCZNIK” shows how to design and build barrier-free workplaces and public spaces. This is the first one of this kind compendium in Poland which promotes accessible design. Thanks to the directions from “WŁĄCZNIK” you can create accessible, universal places, where everyone can move safely. The whole journey with “WŁACZNIK” began during the workshops carried out by the Fundacja Integracja for Skanska employees. It was then when employees was trying to move on a wheelchair, use a white stick and face the unfriendly architecture, the idea of writing a textbook for architects appeared. The starting point for the book's creation became the 7 principles of universal design: equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, size and space for approach and use. During the work on publication, we also analysed the most frequent errors that Fundacja Integracja finds during ongoing audits of existing buildings and their projects, and we searched for practical solutions that will help to avoid them in a simple way. That's how “WŁĄCZNIK” was made. Together with Fundacja Integracja and Takie Pany graphics, we have created a new standard of universal construction, trusting that it will be an inspiration for architects, designers, developers and people responsible for changing the law in Poland. The manual shows that accessibility includes not only the needs of wheelchair users, but also those who use crutches, walking sticks, people with visual disabilities (blind and visually impaired) and hearing disabilities (deaf and hard of hearing) and all with other types of disability, temporarily disabled, pregnant women, parents with children, the elderly or children. In “WŁĄCZNIK” we present specific parametric data, we give a tool that will allow you to design unusual solutions and to face the difficult task of designing or transforming spaces so that they are universally available. We believe that “WŁĄCZNIK” outlines the problems that people with different disabilities may encounter in everyday functioning, and suggests how, by introducing even minor changes, we can design buildings without barriers. Let's build without barriers, it's worth it!