Category: Magazine and newspaper articles

Children with disability are the subject of Access Insight, the quarterly magazine from the access consultants association. The focus is on different formal and informal learning environments and how to make them more accessible. The magazine leads with an article on St Lucy’s School in Sydney and the final article is on technical specifications.

Architect Caroline Hart writes about St Lucy’s School which has a history of being a school for the blind. The first stage of the new development was a three-storey building with 16 purpose-built classrooms on two floors. A carpark and drop-off area formed the basement. Hart describes the project in detail, covering acoustics, lighting, communication and accessibility elements.

Designing accessible built environments is the minimum. Facilitating active participation and inclusion of children with different needs, strengths, and abilities informs practitioners’ approach to procurement, design, and delivery of spaces and places.

Image: Stanton Dahl Architects

Designing with children with disability is discussed by Mary Ann Jackson and Illanna Ginnis. Creating a design process with children with disability breaks down traditional communication structures. However, this is not without challenges. But how to make these processes inclusive using mainstream architectural thinking and design processes? Jackson and Ginnis explain their methods in their article.

Lynda Wilem tackles the subject of hearing augmentation and inclusion in the classroom. She discusses the established augmentation systems and their benefits and drawbacks. There is new technology on the way using Bluetooth systems which are already available on smart phones that connect to hearing aids. Wilem adds that augmentation systems are only part of the solution for children with low hearing.

And there’s more…

Indoor play centres is the subject of Vanessa Griffin’s article. She tells the story of advocating for an inclusive play centre in her local government area. Designer, Many Lau, raises the subject of diversity and creating supports for children in early learning centres. Allen Kong gives an overview of “Golden Cubes Awards”, a project run by the International Union of Architects. Technical aspects of handrail design for children is covered by Howard Moutrie.

You can view the magazine on issuu, and there is an option to download the 9MB PDF magazine which you might find easier to read.

Elise Roy was told at the age of ten that she would lose her hearing. But her feelings of fear turned into feelings of gratitude. That’s because she gets to experience the world in a unique way. Elise firmly believes that what helps people with disability is what will help make and design a better world. Its wrapped up in design thinking.

As a disability rights lawyer, Elise used to spend a lot of time focused on enforcing the law. However, she believes there is a better way to solve the issues other than enforcing the law – design thinking. She explains design thinking as a process for innovation and problem solving.

Elise Roy explains more in her 13 minute TEDx talk. Her explanation mirrors much of what universal design and co-design is about. There is also a transcript on the website.

“I believe that losing my hearing was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received,” says Elise Roy. As a disability rights lawyer and design thinker, she knows that being Deaf gives her a unique way of experiencing and reframing the world — a perspective that could solve some of our largest problems. As she says: “When we design for disability first, you often stumble upon solutions that are better than those when we design for the norm.”

Richard Voss reminds us that all of us are ageing all the time. Consequently, we need to think ahead in the design of our cities. He makes a good point that by the time the ink dries on new access codes they are already out of date. His 5 ways to improve accessibility of cities are based on universal design principles.  These don’t date, they evolve.

First, he recommends providing incentives to include universal design features in housing.  As we know, this mitgates major renovations, especially at a time when you can least cope. Lifemark in New Zealand has the answers here.

Second, Voss says we have to wake up to the fact that we all need universal design. He points out that accessibility is not all about wheelchairs.

Third, we should combine common sense with building codes. Here Voss talks about merging universal design with heritage codes. 

Fourth, create a new innovation industry around accessibility. Voss says we should get universal design embedded in the retrofit of buildings. It will make them more sustainable and resilient as well as accessible.

Fifth, set achievable targets for each development sector. Discussions around inclusion affect every sector: workplaces, retail, hospitality, transportation, etc. Links between disciplines are essential.

Voss concludes that universal design has no extra cost if implemented early in the design process. Unfortunately, not many people believe this because from past experience, change usually means extra cost.

The article by Richard Voss was posted on Linked In. 

It’s so much easier to measure outputs than outcomes. Social value is an outcome, but how do you measure it? Well the answer for most is, it’s too hard so don’t bother. The Fifth Estate features an article about why the building industry should measure the social value of good design. 

The Women’s Property Initiatives in Melbourne provide housing for women and children. They have a system where tenants pay no more than 30 per cent of their income in rent. They knew this was working because they could see improved wellbeing. But how do you measure this social value in money terms?

So, what is social value? It is “the quantification of the importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives”. Using stated preferences methods in research is a similar idea. 

Emma Williams argues for the building industry to broaden the way they measure the success of a project. If we are to address social inequities, we have to give equal weight to social value. Measuring financial and environmental impacts is only part of the job. 

The title of the article is, The difficult task of measuring social value in the built environment. 

The Women’s Property initiative found that for every dollar invested, $11.07 of social value was created. Architects can work out the economics of green standards, but not social impact. Success of a project is about the people – that means social value. 

Does the design of parliament buildings affect democracy? An interesting question. It’s often said that the design of our environment affects our behaviours. So would that apply to houses of parliament as well?

In US politics we hear talk of ‘reaching across the aisle’. What if there was no aisle and everyone sat in a circle? We know that spatial design affects mood and communication. Hospitals are designed to promote healing and airports to minimise stress. Research by an architecture firm in Amsterdam took a look at the links between architecture and the political process.

Architecture firm XML examined as many of the 193 United Nations member states as they could and visited 15. Classroom style, horseshoes, opposing benches and semi-circles were most typical. The XML website has floor plans and 360 degree views as a preface to the book.  Seems Bangladesh has a good parliament building model (floorplan pictured).

The authors say, “Once built, parliaments are locked in time, whereas political systems can and should adapt to what is changing in the world. It is necessary to rethink our models for collective decision-making but it seems to be incredibly difficult. Architecture can be one of the ways to work and experiment with it.” There is a systematic lack of innovation in the spaces used by our elected leaders.

Some interesting points and 360 degree views of several buildings in the FastCompany article if you have access. The title of the article is, The Subtle Way Government Architecture Shapes Governments Themselves.

Subtitling and captioning are often used interchangeably when reproducing the spoken word in written form. Subtitles usually mean a language translation for films and television. However, it is often used to mean closed captioning. Whether it’s captioning or subtitling, it now provides an opportunity to describe the sound effects as well as the words. Sound effects and music are a major part of the movie experience, especially the horror and action genres. So Netflix has taken captioning (or subtitles as they call them) to the next level.

Netflix’s subtitling gives deaf and hard of hearing viewers the same immersive experience of tentacles squelching and roiling wetly as hearing audiences.

Photo Netflix

An article in Vulture online blog explains how Netflix are keeping up with the ever-changing rules for subtitlers. The subject of the article is the Netflix series, Stranger Things. Apparently the subtitles “became a sensation among fans”.

People writing captions and subtitles are usually in the background working away quietly. The Netflix subtitling team relies on audio but sometimes gets a shooting script which helps with character and location names. What ends up on screen is often different to the script.

I didn’t understand the care and diligence that a good subtitler makes and the difference they make within a whole community.

Photo from Pixabay

The subtitlers try to stick to genre-appropriate language as well. “Squelching” in a horror movie is meant to evoke disgust. The sound would be described differently in a Regency-era picture or comedy. It’s all about creating atmosphere.

The title of the Vulture article is, Wet Writhing and Eldritch Gurgling: A Chat With the Stranger Things Subtitles Team. It has more background information on how the team works and thinks.

Editor’s comment. For hearing people, there is a bonus. It’s like reading the book and viewing the story at the same time. It will be good if all subtitlers and captioners follow suit. Audio describers have the task of matching the vision to those sounds to create the same atmosphere.