Dimensions of Housing Adaptation for People with Disabilities in Mexico: Three Case Studies

Abstract

The work deals about the adaptation of social housing for use by disabled people. The lack of Mexican legislation that informs the large social housing builders of the country on housing adaptation standards for use by people with disabilities, has generated a housing stock poorly adapted to be used by this segment of the population, according to INEGI figures, in 2010 it reached 5 million 739 thousand 270 people, representing 5.1% of the total population.

The perspective of adapting social housing built in Mexico seems an impossible task, unless it is done in a way that seeks to adapt that park case by case from the client-architect job perspective. The calculation of the costs of such adaptation is difficult to carry out, so that a legislative change like the one that is necessary to carry out in Mexico, faces the problem of financing. We undertook a field study to begin measuring the "size" that would reach a funding aimed at providing accessible spaces to this population. We analyse three models of social housing in Monterrey, intended for three segments of the population that acquire housing, developed by two of the most important companies in the field in Mexico.

Adaptation projects were then carried out with the aim of realizing them looking for the lowest possible cost of adaptation, including using state-of-the-art accessibility technology for disabled people, as a resource, in such a way as to allow us to prospect the amount of investment necessary for a housing will become universally accessible.