Category: Magazine and newspaper articles

Design is powerful. It can include or exclude. While many designers are doing their best to be inclusive, others are deliberately creating hostile designs. Why do this? It’s under the heading of “defensive architecture” – ways to prevent crime. But should this be solved with design – it’s the opposite of universal design.

An article from UNSW begins, “Spike, bars and barricades are not typically things you would associate with a park. But it turns out they are part of a growing suite of hostile design interventions in public spaces.”

Creating urban discomfort

Spikes are embedded in flat surfaces underneath bridges to deter rough sleepers. Seats and flat surfaces made too uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time. Such designs are at odds with moves to encourage people to get out and about and stay active. Flat surfaces act as seating for those tired legs. Instead of hostile design we should be looking to solve homelessness and other social ills – these aren’t crimes. Meanwhile, it goes against all the principles of universal design.

The article is titled, Defensive architecture: design at its most hostile. It has examples and pictures and discusses the issues of designing to exclude. One picture shows a bench seat with armrests and suggests they are to stop people sleeping on them. However, armrests help people to push up to a standing position.  

There is a similar article in The Guardian, Anti-homeless spikes: ‘Sleeping rough opened my eyes to the city’s barbed cruelty‘. 

Unpleasant Design is a podcast on the same topic. 

Image courtesy UNSW newsroom.

What good is design if not for everyone?

“I believe design functions like the soundtrack that we are not fully aware we are playing. It sends subconscious messages about how to feel and what to expect” says John Carey in his Ted Talk. So what good is design if it’s not for everyone?

John Carey calls fellow architects to create places and spaces for people other than themselves – who, for the most part are white males. “Dignity is to design is what justice is to law and health is to medicine”. “The design reflects back to you your value”. “If good design is only for a privileged few, what good is it?” “Good design shapes our idea of who we are in the world and what we deserve.”

Unlike law and medicine, architecture has failed to attract and sustain women and people of colour. This is a passionate talk that does not mention accessibility specifically, but is a call to consider everyone in designs. Check it out.

 

Minimum access standards for the built environment do not guarantee accessibility. Unfortunately, we still have designers who aren’t interested in best practice, only in ticking the compliance box. It also means that access is a last thought and remedies, such as ramps, are tacked onto the “grand design”. But universal design should be the grand design if we want equitable and dignified use by all. 

The Access to Premises Standard of 2011 has improved accessibility to new buildings, but it is not the total answer. They only go part way in creating inclusive environments. An article in Sourceable addresses some of the issues and the myths that remain within the property industry. The myths about minimum access standards are explained in detail in the article and are briefly listed below:

1. 1. 1. Access is the same as universal design.
      2. Universal design in more expensive than access.
      3. The Australian Standard for Access considers all people with disability.
      4. The dimensions in the Australian Standard provide independent access for everyone.
      5. Minimum compliance guarantees all people with disability cannot use everything in a building.
      6. Access consultants know everything about access, disability and universal design.

The article concludes, “If we allow ourselves to be constrained by the minimum we will never aspire to the maximum. The legacy will be mediocrity.”  The title of the article is Minimum Compliance Means Missed Opportunities and Mediocrity. 

 

It takes much more than a ramp to make a place or space accessible. It might allow entry and access for people who use mobility devices, but it doesn’t make for equity or inclusion. This is a well argued point in a Time magazine article. “Accessibility should be a catalytic force for something more” says Eddie Ndopu. It’s a “slippery, deceptive word that belies its own emancipatory meaning”.

Ndopu uses the term “accessibility” as meaning inclusion, where perhaps others might use inclusive or universal design. As many others have stated before, technical compliance does not always provide access, let alone inclusion. He discusses how accessibility, in the various interpretations, is, indeed, slippery. It implies freedom but does not deliver the goods. 

A well-written and thoughtful read based on personal experience. A good reminder that for all the words, the intentions of those words are yet to be realised.

The title of the article is, It’s Time to Rethink the Language of Accessibility. And to Imagine a More Equal World.

The caption for the image in the magazine shows Eddie Ndopu, who has a degree from Oxford, works for the UN and plans to go to space. 

People with disability are often stereotyped and considered “the others” in plans, policies and products. This means we haven’t found the right terminology to cover this diverse group. So we have gradually invented words and phrases as we go. Some terms are OK such as universal access. Others are demeaning or patronising, for example, “differently abled”. Making something accessible also has many variations. It could be a building complying to government regulations. Or it could be something designed with the broadest range of potential users in mind. But saying universal access or something is fully accessible is vague.

Carrie-Ann Lightley discusses this issue in a blog post. When a website or brochure says “fully accessible” – fully accessible to whom? “Wheelchair Friendly” doesn’t help either. As Carrie-Ann says, “you just really like wheelchairs?” In the context of travel and tourism she repeats the message about information. That is, information that helps everyone decide if they can visit and get around in a place. Sweeping statements and wheelchair icons don’t cut it. Similarly, websites that ask people to call to confirm their needs. Information is power. 

Carrie-Ann also has a useful short video on her Twitter page.

From the editor – other terms to avoid are “all abilities” or any word where “ability” has been captured in a way to make it sound inclusive. It doesn’t. Special words are still special and segregating and label the group you are thinking of as separate. One could argue terms such as “employability” meaning “recruiting people with disability” is required at this point in time. That’s because employment and recruitment practices are yet to be inclusive.   

 

While we talk of inclusive education and designing inclusive learning material, little has changed in the physical design of schools. According to an article in The Conversation, the classic 7 Principles of Universal Design are too vague and abstract to be of any help. However, designers are often directed to them as the way to go. Read more on this discussion about learning from the best that already exists. The authors are Scott Alterator, Benjamin Cleveland and Jocelyn Boys. There are more useful links to other documents in the article.The title of the article is, Students with disabilities need inclusive buildings. We can learn from what’s already working.

Steinfeld and Maisel in 2012 devised the 8 Goals of Universal Design, which are more practical, but they haven’t had the same coverage as the Principles. 

Editor’s note: I agree with the authors that the 7 Principles are only a starter for thinking inclusively. Unfortunately they are so often quoted in academia and guidebooks that it is difficult to shift away from them. Part of the problem is that the term “universal design” is used in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. That isn’t the problem per se. If people don’t know what universal design is, they Google it or go to Wikipedia. A Google search will almost certainly take you to the 7 Principles. And then perhaps policy makers and designers look no further.

There is no quick fix checklist. Inclusion is more than that – it is a way of thinking. I wrote an article along time ago that is still being read, Universal Design: Is it Accessible?   

If ever there was an example of how not to design a public library, this has to be it. All because the architects failed to check with any user groups. The architects still maintain the issues are just “wrinkles” in the design, not flaws. However, bookshelves lay empty, bleacher seating is sealed off for safety reasons, baby strollers block the walkways, and that doesn’t include the issues for people with disability – patrons and staff alike. The building offers wonderful views but it’s not how to build a library. 

The article is from the New York Times, New Library is a $41.5 Million Masterpiece. But About Those Stairs. It explains the issues in more detail and has more pictures. There is also a news video from Spectrum News with the story. A salutary lesson in remembering function as well as form in design. 

An architecture magazine explains more of the back story: Accessibility by the Book: The Case of the Hunters Point Library. It seems the architects heeded the ADA minimum requirements. Treating the tiered section of the library as an “assembly place”  the ADA only requires access to the top and bottom levels. 

2024 Update: New York City sues architects over the design – see more in The New York Times.The City is suing for the $10m it will cost to remedy the current lack of access. 

Any good examples?

Do you know of good examples of universal design in buildings? One or two maybe?  Bess Williamson asks in Metropolis magazine, Why Are There So Few Great Accessible Buildings? Of course, accessibility in its fullest sense is much more than compliance to the building code.

Professor Williamson discusses the LightHouse project, and the Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living. Including people with disability in the design process means these buildings are not a regular type of commission. In some respects they are specialised buildings because people with disability were central to design thinking. It’s puzzling to think that architects can’t apply the same thinking to all their projects. After all, everyone benefits from inclusive design. What’s worrying is that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), isn’t being heeded.

Williamson also discusses the recent architectural “triumph” of the new Queens Public Library which revealed major access problems. The architects claimed compliance on the basis that patrons could ask a librarian for help. However, this is not equitable access. It shows scant regard for the ADA and not only people with disability. Families with prams also use libraries, and staff cannot take trolleys to the shelves. Thinking about all users makes a case for universal design. The Queens Library is a case of form over function – the views from the windows, if you can reach them, are fabulous. 

Williamson concludes that access remains an afterthought for designers who look to the minimum. But disability-specific places show that access can be creative beyond the legal minimum. The article is easy to read and has a gallery of illustrations.