Image of Library design courtesy Clive Wilkinson Architects.The open office design is dead. That’s according to the designers of offices for big corporates such as Google and Microsoft. The COVID pandemic has caused a major re-think of office design and how people best function in office settings. Many workers have found open offices less than ideal workplaces. According to an article in FastCompany, apart from being noisy they reinforce sexist behaviour and make people leave their jobs. The three design typologies in the article indicate good circulation spaces, but there is little in these designs that indicate inclusive design principles. For some people, working from home is still the optimum if office design and office culture do not make them welcome. However, these designs offer space to move around and interact with fellow workers rather than being tucked away in a nook.The Library is an open floor plan with large working tables, individual nooks and comfortable chairs. Rather like an airport business lounge. The Plaza is a kitchen and lunchroom space and encourages social activity. This is the part that people miss by working from home. It might encourage people back to the office.The Avenue is, as the name suggests, a place for chance interaction with tables and stools and little nooks.The title of the article is, These architects popularized the open office. Now they say ‘the open office is dead’.
Open plan offices: what’s the verdict?
The debate about whether open plan offices make good places to work continues. A team of Harvard researchers found that they weren’t. But it seems they were looking at the extreme of open plan offices, and poorly designed at that. In defense of open plan design, architect Ashley L Dunn argues that the Harvard study chose offices where there were no partitions and no separate meeting rooms or places for private conversations. These are elements that make open plan effective. You can read more from Dunnin the FastCompany article. By chance, most open plan designs end up being more accessible for people using wheeled mobility devices. Toilets and staff rooms might be another matter though.
What about accessibility?
It would be good to see an article such as this also tackle issues of inclusion and accessibility in office design, particularly for people who for example, are deaf or hard of hearing, have back pain, or have low vision. Some solutions are simple such as moving clutter from walkways. The video below from the Rick Hansen Foundationshows how simple things make a big difference – it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Ramps are not just good for wheeled mobility devices, they are good for people who communicate by signing. DeafSpace Design means a few extra tweaks in a universal design approach to design thinking. Examples of DeafSpace Design are few and far between. One reason they are hard to find is because the term “DeafSpace” is not used in design briefs. Nevertheless, aspects of DeafSpace Design are sometimes included without fanfare. Julia Coolen explains how DeafSpace design is, or could be, integrated into general universal design principles. She explains which design aspects are particular to people who sign and/or lip read. Images help with the explanations. The example of the ramp is a case in point. Importantly, the width of the ramp should allow two people to walk side by side so they can continue signing. Steps and stairways interrupt their vision and therefore their conversation. Coolen discusses three principles: Mobility and Proximity, Space and Proximity, and Sensory Reach.The title of the article is, DeafSpace and Disability: A research into DeafSpace design and its peculiarities in relation to other architectural adaptations for disabilities. It is an open access thesis, which is relatively short with text that is to the point. The university page has a link to the PDF at the bottom of the page.If you prefer to get a quick grab of the concepts, watch the video featuring Gallaudet University.
Abstract
Throughout history the built environment has mostly been designed from an able-bodied perspective, which causes a set of challenges for people with disabilities. In the 20th century however, a growing attention for disability in architecture took place that resulted in a shift in architecture. This thesis focusses on DeafSpace design and how architecture has historically responded to the need to design for people with disabilities. This leads to the research question of this thesis: What makes design for DeafSpace so special compared to other architectural adaptations for other disabilities? By analysing three buildings that follow the DeafSpace design principles, this thesis shows what makes DeafSpace special compared to other architectural adaptations for other disabilities. DeafSpace concerns design principles that go beyond the mere application of a ramp for wheelchairs. DeafSpace creates spaces that benefit ‘every-body’, it refuses the ‘normalisation’ and ‘standardisation’ of the able-bodied perspective. It is about creating awareness and it seeks to design and improve spaces to be functional for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. In saying so, it is to be concluded that, in contrast with its name, DeafSpace and its five design principles—Space and Proximity, Mobility and Proximity, Sensory Reach, Light and Colour, and Acoustics—are beneficial to ‘every-body’.
Builders are beginning to incorporate some basic universal design features in new home designs. An audit of 10 of the largest home builders in Australia revealed some interesting results. But it is still a hit and miss affair – the features are not consistently applied. So builders are doing it – just some of it and so it is not yet universal design in housing. The Summer Foundation and University of Melbourne carried out the research. Their preliminary findings show that many of the new homes meet several criteria of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. That means it can’t be too hard or too costly as the housing industry claims. However, these features are probably by default rather than design. Three key features that would make a home accessible are absent from all designs. These are wider doorways, circulation space in front of the toilet pan, and a shower on the ground level. Those three features are the ones that cost the most to modify later. The short report has a chart comparing the accessible features across the 10 builders. The report concludes that housing to suit people with mobility impairments does not compromise the design for others. The title of the report is, Preliminary Findings: Audit of Accessible Features in New Build House Plans.
Most people want to stay in their own homes rather than go to an aged care institution. The Royal Commission into Aged Care report confirmed this. And the obvious follows – it’s also beneficial for governments because the costs of home care are less than institutional care. But are our homes designed to support care at home?According to an AHURI Brief, on average, someone on a home support program costs the Government around $3,900 per year. The cost of a person living in residential care costs around $69,000 a year. These figures are the annual ongoing cost per person. The cost of a home care package ranges from $9,000 a year to $52,000 per year depending on the level of support. The AHURI Brief includes a chart comparing the various costs of of the different packages and support against the cost of residential care. Another cost that could be reduced is the need for home modifications. Not only can people stay home more safely, care hours are also reduced. In rental accommodation such modifications can be denied by the landlord. That will lead to early entry into an institution. The AHURI Brief concludes, “We note that there is currently no discernible connection between the Australian Government aged care program and any Australian or State or Territory Government housing program. This must change.”The title of the AHURI Brief is, Better supporting older Australians to age in place. AHURI(Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute) is a national independent research network. AHURI’s work informs policy about housing and urban development. They have not engaged with the proposed reforms to the National Construction Code for improved accessibility in all new housing.
Why is it still OK for older people to be “put” in aged care institutions? We closed such places for people with disability and mental health conditions last century. There will still be a need for some people to receive care in a place that is not their home. But the vast majority could be better served with homes and neighbourhoods designed to support them. So, are institutions still the way to go for aged care?The Conversation has an article that discusses this issue arguing it’s time to support healthy ageing in place. “Age-friendly places aren’t just good for older people. They also support the needs of children, people with a disability and everyone elsein a community.” The article includes the well-established global age-friendly framework devised by the WHO many years ago. It is still relevant today. As the authors say, the WHO framework covers the essential ingredients of liveable communities. And it supports well-being for all. The title of the article is, Aged care isn’t working, but we can create neighbourhoods to support healthy ageing in place.A previous post, Ageing in the right place, has links to more on this topic outlining alternatives to aged care institutions.
Planning research has not yet evolved to include disability perspectives. Is it because the medical model of disability still prevails? Or is it mistakenly believed that disability is not a design issue? Some might say it’s because the needs of people with disability are fragmented across government departments. Practitioners in the planning field are required to engage with communities, but it seems the researchers are not keeping up.
Two Canadian researchers took a look at the situation. A search of five prominent planning journals showed that people with disability largely remain invisible. The researchers found just 36 articles – most of which come from the US and the UK. Only 20 had people with disability as the central topic.
The authors describe the content of the papers that go back as far as 1916. Attitudes towards people with disability clearly changed over the years but including them in research did not. Papers that did mention people with disability generally added them to a list of other groups considered vulnerable or marginalised.
The paper concludes:
“Planning researchers and practitioners, therefore, must continue to question what knowledge, assumptions, and biases we may have toward PWD and experiences of disability that manifest through our environment. More broadly, planning scholarship can be strengthened by continuous questioning of self—on the processes through which certain knowledge is produced or a pursuit of certain knowledge is prioritised within the discipline. The development of critical discourse focusing on PWD can be a vehicle for such self-reflection.
Scotland has a grand vision for housing. It’s strategy encompasses all the vexed policy issues in one document. The central principle is that housing impacts all other aspects of life. Health, wellbeing, life chances and job prospects are all affected by our housing situation. With this in mind, Scotland’s ambitious strategy sets out a 20 year work program to 2040.
The policy issues addressed are: homelessness, affordability, security of tenure, affordable warmth, independent living, the housing market, housing standards, and zero emissions. The section on independent living is where the specifics of accessible housing sit. One aim is to change the accessible housing standard to incorporate accessibility into all new homes. But not yet. However, it is a good example of how to draw all the vexed housing issues into one document.
Universal design elements still require good overall planning and design, consideration of climatic conditions, and connected communities. Scotland’s Housing to 2040weaves them all together. The government website has additional downloads related to the document.
There is a short PDF version incorporating an infographic for those who want a quick overview. However, the page on Principles has little contrast between words and background so it is difficult to read.
Key sections related to accessibility
“To make sure that we build in accessibility and adaptability to new homes and future proof them, we will introduce new building standards to underpin a Scottish Accessible Homes Standard which all new homes must achieve. This will mainstream a high standard of accessibility, delivering a step change in the availability of housing options for disabled people and enable the delivery of new homes in all sectors which can be readily adapted to meet varying needs. (p56)
“We will build on the review of the Housing for Varying Needs Design Guide and the implementation of all tenure wheelchair accessible housing targets, intending to introduce these new requirements into building standards from 2025/26 alongside the new Housing Standard. (p56)
“Provide help to older and disabled home owners who want to move to a home that better meets their needs. We will work with all those involved in making a house move happen, from the solicitors to removal companies, to develop a scheme that helps with every step of the process. We will also consider with banks the potential for cost effective bridging loan schemes to help people to move over several days and take the pressure off a single-day move. (p57)
Key Action
“Action 20: Ensure that everyone who wants to is enabled to live independently in a home of their own. • Review Housing for Varying Needs. • Introduce a new focus on increasing the supply of accessible and adapted homes and improving choice, particularly for younger disabled people. • Use NPF4 to help make more accessible homes available by helping to deliver tenure-neutral wheelchair housing targets, supporting sites for self-provided housing and delivering homes in accessible locations. • Introduce new building standards from 2025/26 to underpin a Scottish Accessible Homes Standard which all new homes must achieve. (p 63)
The timeline shows that the housing standard will be introduced in 2026 and will be fully enforced in 2030. It remains to be seen whether the ideas are implemented or stay as words on a page. Twenty years is a long time.
The NSW Government’s Great Public Spaces Toolkit has all the elements for anyone interested in public space. It’s a collection of free resources to support local government, state agencies, industry and the community. It’s a really simple, well laid out tool.
The Great Public Spaces Toolkit includes:
A four page Fact Sheetabout the Evaluation Tool which has four key questions: Am I able to get there? Am I able to play and participate? Am I able to stay? And am I able to connect? These key indicators are an extension of those developed for the Everyone Can Play guide. They were: Can I get there? Can I play? and Can I stay? and represent a universal design approach to the design of spaces.
The Evaluation Tool is also available in Arabic, Chinese and Vietnamese. Print versions are also included.
Placemaking Europe
There’s another toolbox with extended resources from Placemaking Europe. It’s an open source collection of placemaking guides and manuals with lots of pictures.
“The Placemaking Europe Toolbox is a collection of curated placemaking resources for all to access, learn from, and practice.”
Placemaking Toolkit for small communities
Designing public space is not only for trained professionals. Because the Placemaking Toolkit shows how community groups and residents can do their own place make-over. The Toolkit is for community-driven, low-cost public space transformation. With the support of local government anyone can change a neglected space in their neighbourhood into a clean and safe play area or park.
This Guide is especially relevant for developing countries and remote communities in any country. The Guide is from the Public Space Network and includes case studies at the end. The introduction includes criteria for a good public space.
What makes a good public space?
1. Accessibility: Public spaces shall be well-connected to other places frequently used by people. They should be easy to get to, easy to enter, easy to move around, free and/or affordable for the vast majority.
2. Comfort: The place shall be kept clean and contain elements enhancing the comfort for its users. These can be seating facilities and dustbins painted in colours, and greenery (trees, loan, flowers) providing shade.
3. Safety: The space shall be well visible without any obstruction that could provide a hiding space for criminal activities. The space should be free of any illegal activities and the presence of motorized traffic shall be limited to avoid injuries.
4. Active use: Spaces become places when people use them. In an always empty space, people may not feel safe or comfortable. To encourage its social function, the place shall offer a wide variety of activities that can interest various types of users. The activities may include sport and leisure activities, such as space for boardgames and team sports, playground for children as well as a regular organization of community events – such as sports tournaments, concerts, fairs etc.
5. Walkability: Good public spaces provide opportunities for people to walk safely with minimal interruption from vehicles and other motorized transport.
Planning is also about design. And good design now includes users. Community involvement is a key part of planning processes. It must take account of our human diversity otherwise designs will unintentionally exclude. Community involvement in planning also introduces designers and planners to “other ways of being”.
Design and planning go hand in hand, but design has been a subject to avoid in planning, particularly in the U.S. This is according to a journal article that challenges planners to move beyond policies of spatial organisation.
The article covers climate change and climate justice, and social and racial justice. A workshop using collaborative processes is the basis of a case study highlighting the issues. Community involvement was pivotal to the success of the project and the research outcomes. The subject of the case study is an affordable housing provider. The aim was to move from standard cookie cutter designs to designs that suited the potential residents. The new design was applied to a prototype home.
The author concludes that there are profound implications for planning research. Designers need to engage with planning because they can better address the social and environmental concerns.
Design is increasingly entering planning beyond the subfield of urban design. At a larger scale, designers are moving into the social sciences to apply design skills at intersections with the social sciences. This article offers an overview of research and practice at the forefront of both interpreting design fields and understanding their growing importance within planning. This transcends examinations of urban design to incorporate the potential of design more broadly in planning, with particular emphasis on community development and engagement.
The article does this through a case study of an existing design-based nonprofit (bcWORKSHOP) which leverages techniques across design and planning to generate new forms of community planning practice in the State of Texas. Ultimately, this case study begins to ask whether planning can fully address a number of issues (like social/racial justice and climate change) without understanding these issues from both design and planning perspectives simultaneously. It also emphasizes the importance of training planners to both envision and build alternate possible worlds, a skillset fundamental to design that could reshape planning education and practice.
COVID has revealed our reliance communicating online and via social media. That’s why European countries are getting together to improve the accessibility of all digital services. The digital world has to be accessible to all. It is also part of the Sustainable Development Goals and “leave no-one behind”. That’s why digital transitioning requires mainstream accessibility.
The International Telecommunication Union has launched its ICT accessibility assessment for the Europe region. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of ICT accessibility. The report is designed to provide ITU members and stakeholders from the ITU Europe region with a holistic view of ICT accessibility requirements, the implementation status of ICT accessibility laws, regulations, policies and institutional frameworks, and with good practices and recommendations. Accessibility for all, including ICT is now a top priority.
A magazine article in Mirage titled, Accessible Europe 2021: Making ICTs accessible to all, provides an overview of the assessment report. By 2023 the ITU wants 90% of digital services to have the “seal of usability and accessibility”. This is part of the Accessible Europe project.
The debate about whether open plan offices make good places to work continues. A team of Harvard researchers found that they weren’t. But it seems they were looking at the extreme of open plan offices, and poorly designed at that.
In defense of open plan design, architect Ashley L Dunn argues that the Harvard study chose offices where there were no partitions and no separate meeting rooms or places for private conversations. These are elements that make open plan effective. You can read more from Dunn in the FastCompany article. By chance, most open plan designs end up being more accessible for people using wheeled mobility devices. Toilets and staff rooms might be another matter though.
Builders are beginning to incorporate some basic universal design features in new home designs. An audit of 10 of the largest home builders in Australia revealed some interesting results. But it is still a hit and miss affair – the features are not consistently applied. So builders are doing it – just some of it and so it is not yet universal design in housing. 
Most people want to stay in their own homes rather than go to an aged care institution. The Royal Commission into Aged Care report confirmed this. And the obvious follows – it’s also beneficial for governments because the costs of home care are less than institutional care. But are our homes designed to support care at home?
Why is it still OK for older people to be “put” in aged care institutions? We closed such places for people with disability and mental health conditions last century. There will still be a need for some people to receive care in a place that is not their home. But the vast majority could be better served with homes and neighbourhoods designed to support them. So, are institutions still the way to go for aged care?
Planning research has not yet evolved to include disability perspectives. Is it because the medical model of disability still prevails? Or is it mistakenly believed that disability is not a design issue? Some might say it’s because the needs of people with disability are fragmented across government departments. Practitioners in the planning field are required to engage with communities, but it seems the researchers are not keeping up. 
Scotland has a grand vision for housing. It’s strategy encompasses all the vexed policy issues in one document. The central principle is that housing impacts all other aspects of life. Health, wellbeing, life chances and job prospects are all affected by our housing situation. With this in mind, 
The NSW Government’s 
Planning is also about design. And good design now includes users. Community involvement is a key part of planning processes. It must take account of our human diversity otherwise designs will unintentionally exclude. Community involvement in planning also introduces designers and planners to “other ways of being”. 