REGBASE: a distributed information infrastructure for regulation management and compliance checking

This research is to study the regulations for assuring, for the handicapped, accessibility to buildings. The accessibility regulations are federally enacted by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The intent of the accessibility regulations is to provide the same or equivalent access to a building and its facilities for disabled persons (for example, persons restricted to a wheelchair, persons with hearing and sight disabilities) and persons without qualifying disabilities. To fulfill this intent, the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guide (ADAAG [1]) has prescribed measures such as various clearances and reach thresholds for building components. Furthermore, the guidelines are continuously being updated and new rules are proposed (and commented by the public). There are two basic research objectives: (1) to develop a design-aid framework to support disabled access analysis for building design; (2) to develop a framework for the management of accessibility regulations.