EVOLUTION OF REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS FOR INCLUSIVE BUILT ENVIRONMENTS: FROM PARAMETRIC REQUIREMENTS TO A SCENARIO-BASED FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of international approaches to the regulatory framework governing accessibility and inclusivity of the built environment from an architectural and legal perspective. The relevance of the study is driven by the need to reconsider the current system of Ukrainian state building regulations in the field of inclusion, which, under conditions of post-war reconstruction, redevelopment of historical environments, and adaptation of public buildings to contemporary requirements, increasingly reveals the limitations of a purely parametric approach. It is demonstrated that architectural accessibility, in its modern understanding, cannot be reduced solely to technical compliance with regulatory indicators but represents a materialized form of implementing the principles of equality, human dignity, and non-discrimination within the spatial environment.

The paper examines the provisions of DBN V.2.2-40:2018 in comparison with international standards and national regulatory documents of selected countries, including ISO 21542:2021, DIN 18040 (Germany), TEK17 (Norway), Disability (Access to Premises — Buildings) Standards 2010 (Australia), Approved Document M and BS 8300 (England), the Spanish Building Technical Code (Código Técnico de la Edificación), and SIST EN 17210 (Slovenia). The analysis focuses on identifying methodological differences between the parametric regulatory model characteristic of the Ukrainian normative framework and the scenario-based and performance-based approaches applied in international practice.

The methodological framework of the study is based on comparative legal analysis, a systemic examination of the built environment, and a scenario-based functional approach to assessing spatial use by different population groups. The results indicate that there are no fundamental discrepancies between Ukrainian and international regulatory documents regarding basic geometric accessibility parameters. However, the key difference lies in the logic of regulation: while Ukrainian state building norms are primarily oriented toward fixing minimum permissible parameters as compliance criteria, international standards and national systems of leading countries emphasize the achievement of functional accessibility outcomes.

The synthesis of international experience substantiates the feasibility of a two-level regulatory model for inclusivity, which combines mandatory minimum technical requirements as a baseline level of compliance with the possibility of applying alternative design solutions, provided that their equivalent or higher inclusive quality is demonstrated. The findings may be used in the process of updating Ukrainian state building regulations, as well as in architectural design and expert practice when substantiating inclusive solutions under complex architectural and urban planning conditions.