Projetando no silêncio: estratégias para participação de pessoas surdas em projetos de arquitetura residencial

Abstract

In Brazil, the theme of social and environmental inclusion of people with disabilities has been discussed in several areas. In architecture, such debate has been linked to the concept of Universal Design (understood as the basis for ensuring accessibility to the physical environment and the search for adequate solutions to human diversity) and strategies that promote greater participation of users in the design process. In this sense, it is important to emphasize the need for the professional to master techniques for the development and presentation of proposals that are easily understood by the clients, regardless of their limitations. In this question, this research investigates a way to facilitate communication between the designer and the deaf user (whose major limitations are precisely in the field of interpersonal communication), in order to enable: (i) the first one to understand the relation of deaf people with built environment; (ii) the second understands the design proposal and actively participates in the process of its design. Theoretically the work is based on some concepts of Communication and DeafSpace. Empirically, simulations were performed of some residential environments with a three-dimensional physical model manipulated by deaf people, accompanied by interviews and observations. The experience occurred in the city of Mossoró / RN between October and November of 2017 and had the participation of 12 deaf people of both gender. The results point to the effectiveness of the methodology, facilitating the communication process between both parties, besides allowing the understanding of some concepts of architecture, accessibility and even Deaf Space itself hardly identified through methodologies more commonly used in the area as interviews and questionnaires, helping in this way future researches with both prototypes and environments for deaf people.