Barrier-free Furniture Design For Disabled People

Furniture design needs serve different groups of people along with the progress of social civilization. Barrier-free furniture is aimed at special persons and groups.Firstly, this paper analyzes the status quo of barrier-free furniture home and abroad, highlights the importance of developing barrier-free furniture design and points out the inadequacy of barrier-free furniture design in China currently.Secondly, the paper specifically elaborates the concept of barrier-free design. The design principles are summed up in combination with the concept of furniture design so that several evaluating principles in barrier-free design such as accessibility, assistance and protectiveness are concluded. Evaluating principles mainly focus on the convenience for disabled people in using furniture.Thirdly, it explores the barrier-free furniture design for disabled people on the basis of analyzing their physical and mental needs as well as their behavioral features, and proposes that barrier-free furniture design must consider some pointed design elements:measurement, form and structure, color and material, psychological elements etc. The paper also puts forward some notions for barrier-free and human-based furniture design including safety, easiness to use, autonomy and health.Finally, it takes the wheelchair users as the representatives of disabled people to analyze their ergonomic size and size requirements for using facilities. It specifically researches the design methods of chairs, beds, tables, cupboards and cabinets for wheelchair users and illustrates part of barrier-free furniture for disabled people as case to analyze.