Friendly City. Making Architectural Heritage Accessible

Abstract

The “Friendly City” Project (FCP) supports the blind and visually impaired (BVI) people to perceive the local architectural heritage in Lodz city in Poland. The multidisciplinary project aims on promoting the accessibility of architectural heritage to the BVI community by adding Audio Descriptions (AD) to 85 public places. The ADs in FCP are guided by insights from an eye tracking study on the perception of architecture by novices and experts, and interviews with BVIs from the Lodz association. The project supports the independence of movement of BVI people in the city center using public transport by installing 200 Bluetooth beacons on city stops and in public places. The beacon devices communicate with smartphones of BVIs and sighted people via a mobile application. The system and applications for FCP are designed with the principles of universal user-centered design. The signals will help BVIs to locate the stop with voice messages about the distance and location.