Universal Accessibility Plan for the Historical Centre of Guadalupe

Location: Guadalupe, Cáceres (Spain)

Year: 2017

Customer:  Junta de Extremadura

#Accesiibility  #Heritage

Accessibility: a priority challenge.
Guadalupe, because of its spelling and its configuration, presents itself as a place where physical barriers are a constant, both for the daily life of its neighbours and for visitors. However, this population shows willingness to be accessible, and to eliminate both physical and cognitive barriers, in order to reach a Universal Accessibility, understood as the condition that environments, processes, goods, products and services, as well as objects or instruments, tools and devices must fulfil, in order to be understandable, usable and practicable by all people in safety, comfort and in the most autonomous and natural way possible.

Heritage: a value to be shared.
Guadeloupe has an exceptional heritage value, both in its urban context and in the natural environment, which makes it a centre for visits and pilgrimages. The management of the heritage and the need to make it accessible to its visitors and neighbours requires adaptations that solve the general problems of any environment, with the priority condition of valuing and taking care of what makes it singular and beautiful. The interventions are proposed from specific proposals for each situation that guarantee the improvement for its accessibility, that from the respect and the care for the pre-existence.

Participation: a necessary condition.
The problems and opportunities presented by Guadeloupe are as varied as its population. The interventions proposed for their improvement must respond to both collective and individual demands. Any plan of action must be developed from participative processes and inclusive methodologies, where the perspectives of all the agents involved in the municipality are gathered both for the detection of problems and opportunities and for the generation of proposals and solutions. The inclusion of all parties in the accessibility plan is a necessary condition for its success.