The Significance of ADA: Civil Rights and Built Environments

This essay provides an overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), highlighting its role as a civil rights law that prevents discrimination and promotes equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. It discusses how the ADA has helped conceptualize the relationship between disability and society, recognizing the needs of vulnerable populations and enabling formal equality through affirmative inclusion. The essay also emphasizes the ADA's significance in designing built environments, improving physical access for the disabled, and fostering social and economic participation. Furthermore, it addresses criticisms of the ADA, particularly the incompatibility between legal and design knowledge, which can lead to uninspired accessible designs. The essay concludes that while the ADA has made significant strides, there is a need for designers to approach accessibility as a creative problem to enhance the user experience.

Running head: DISABILITIES ACT IN AMERICA
Disabilities Act in America
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1DISABILITIES ACT IN AMERICA
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) refers to the civil rights law which helps in
preventing any kind of discrimination against the individuals and helps them in getting the
same opportunities like the other people (Liebermann 2015). This essay discusses how the
ADA helps in offering protection to the civil rights. The essay states the significance of the
ADA pertaining to the designing of built environments. The essay discusses the problems of
ADAH as has been pointed out by Liebermann.
According to Liebermann (2015), ADA have helped in conceptualizing relationship
existing in between the disability and the society. It have helped in recognizing the needs of
the vulnerable people in the society and it have underwritten the affirmative acts of the
inclusion which have enabled the formal equality. It have helped in improving the physical
access for the disabled people as it is equipped with the public accommodations component
that have helped it in supporting the disabled people so that they can participate fully within
the society. The ADA can be said to be an important step within the trajectory of the liberal
democracy that have helped in linking it to that of African American struggle in relation to
the justice.
ADA have helped in designing the built environment that have helped in benefitting
the broader society. It can be said that the inaccessibility is pervasive and it have helped the
business owners in phasing the renovations that are required for meeting the code. It have
been stated by Liebermann (2015) that it have helped in bringing in the modifications in path
of the travel, water fountains, rest rooms along with the public telephones. It have helped in
providing realm of the access for people having the disabilities that have acted as an enabler
pertaining to the social and the economic activities. It have helped in the creation of the
facilities and the infrastructure that have greatly helped those people who are suffering from
the brunt of the disabilities.

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The problem with ADA lies on account of the fact that there exists the incompatibility
in between the legal and the design knowledge. There exist a large number of the architects
who look for the accessible requirements inside codebook instead of tackling the access in the
form of a creative problem. There exist epistemological chasm in between the law and the
architecture which is responsible for that of unanimated accessible designs which reaffirms
the disability as being outside the ambit of the architecture. I think that her criticisms are
reasonable on account of the fact that it have often been found that the designers treat the task
to be a technical problem instead of trying to provide the positive experiences for the users.
ADA have managed to conceptualize the relation which exists between disability and
that of the society. It have recognized demands of vulnerable people and it have managed to
underwrite affirmative activities pertaining to the inclusion in the society. ADA have helped
business owners in phasing the process of the renovation that have helped companies in
meeting code.

3DISABILITIES ACT IN AMERICA
References
Liebermann, W.K., 2015. The Right to Live in the World: Architecture, Inclusion and the
Americans with Disabilities Act.