Author: Jane Bringolf

Increase sales with inclusive design

Businesses and organisations can increase sales with inclusive design. When a UK theatre embedded inclusive design in their new building they had a 25% rise in ticket sales from people with disability. This is one example in the Design Council a video showing what is possible with some preliminary design thinking. It showcases several organisations and their approach to embedding inclusion into the design of buildings and services – that includes social inclusion.

Community engagement was a big part of the design process: “A lot of ordinary people were involved in the design”.

One interviewee explains how people don’t always use buildings the way you think they will. Consequently it is important to understand the diversity of users with lived experience of the built environment. The video shows several examples – a playground for children and adults alike, transport systems, information systems and devices. It’s down to the details that matter – Barclays bank has a teller machine that includes a spot to hang your walking stick. The theatre mentioned above is also featured. The video is 8 minutes and is captioned.

Easy English and Bumpy Road

Home Page of Bumpy Road website showing nine coloured sections, each with a separate document.Everything seems more difficult when life is spiralling out of control. And when you can’t understand the forms and documents people are asking you to read, it gets so much harder. Going to court to sort things out is very stressful and even more so if you don’t understand what’s going on.  A new website called The Bumpy Road was developed with and for parents with intellectual disability. There are 32 fact sheets on interacting with NSW Community Services and the court system. They cover child protection, going to court, meeting with a lawyer, the role of an advocate and tips from other parents. Information is in Easy English and video format. Child Protection is a companion document. Much of the content will apply to other states.  Women With Disability Australia website hosts many Easy English publications.  If you scroll down you will find Auslan videos among others. Scroll further and there are documents in Kriol, Torres Straight Islander Creole, and Warumungu. Your Human Rights Toolkit is a bundle of four documents in Easy English. Easy Read UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is also a good resource for getting a grasp of this long complicated document. Editor’s comment: I’d like to see Easy Read and Easy English standard for all organisations . Universally designed documents make so much sense for everyone. It gives an opportunity to get the key points and before looking at a more complex document.

Out and about with “new mobility”

A 3D model of urban streets and different forms of transport. Transportation’s latest buzz-word is “new mobility”. The focus of transportation has moved from infrastructure to people getting out and about. That is, a move from what it is to what it does. Our mobility, whether walking or riding, is key to everything else in our lives. Transportation connects us to people and places. The impending changes to the way transport services will be delivered in the future is the topic of a new strategy document.

The Smart Cities Council released a transportation strategy, Mobility Now: Connecting Communities, Smarter, Sooner, Safer. We are on the cusp of major change with electric and automated vehicles. But this change will offer little to our sustainability and inclusion goals if the only thing that changes is the type of car we are likely to buy.  

The strategy outlines steps including redesigning the urban environment, introducing more accessible mobility, and creating an incentive regime. Of particular concern is solving the problem of  “first and last mile” options. 

You can read an overview of the strategy and also download the full document. It is a call to action for a coordinated approach across government, the private sector and the community. 

 

Universal Design in Housing: Australia’s obligations

A graphic of four housing types: small house, town house, apartment block and multi-unit dwelling. Universal design in housing for all dwelling types.Signing up to a United Nations (UN) convention isn’t just a feel-good affair. It actually brings obligations. That means reporting on a regular basis to the relevant UN committee. In Australia, the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department is responsible for government reports on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But it isn’t all up to the government: people with disability must be involved. Their reports are known as “Civil Society Shadow Reports”. This is where the story gets interesting when it comes to universal design in housing.

Margaret Ward’s paper, Universal design in housing: Reporting on  Australia’s obligations to the UNCRPD, traces the reporting history specifically relating to housing. She writes that the Commonwealth Government has avoided action by doing nothing. Further, it has not adequately reported on this failure to act. But the story does not end here. 

This peer reviewed paper was written for the UD2020 Conference that was to be held May 2020, which is now to be held May 2021. It is published on the Griffith University publications website where you can find other papers for the conference. 

Abridged abstract:

The UNCRPD obliges Australia to embrace the concept of universal design as a guide for its activities. The UNCRPD triggered significant changes in the last decade directed by the 2010-2020 National Disability Strategy. This paper reviews Australia’s national and international reports on these obligations over the last decade. Both the Australian government and the housing industry largely disregarded the National Dialogue agreement, and misrepresented the progress made in achieving accessibility within the housing stock. The question remains whether a net benefit to society will be found to be of greater priority than the self-interests of the private housing sector and the political vagaries of government. Again, it will take the voice of people with lived experience and those who represent them to make the argument.

The Provision of Visitable Housing in Australia

A graphic showing facades of different styles of free standing homes in lots of colours. They look like toy houses.Margaret Ward and Jill Franz inspected eleven new dwellings in the Brisbane area. They found that none of the dwellings were visitable. 

When providing the eight features for visitability, the interviewees identified two themes for non-compliance. They were “lack of thought” and “otherness”. There were three themes for compliance: “fashion”, “requirement’ and “good practice”.

Although all dwellings provided some features, no dwelling provided a coherent path of travel necessary to make a dwelling visitable. Some examples of this incoherence were: a step-free driveway which led to a step at the door; a wide front door which led to a narrow corridor; and a narrow internal doorway which did not allow entry of a wheel-chair to a spacious bathroom. The provision of these access features separately and severally did not provide visitability as an outcome in any of the dwellings.

The title of the article is, The Provision of Visitable Housing in Australia: Down to the Detail. 

 

Athletics clubs can be inclusive

Summer is on a grass track and is running in a track lane. Athletics clubs can be inclusive.Australians love sport and  embrace all athletes including para athletes. But how do they get a start if clubs don’t give them a go? The Hills Athletics Academy has found how to adjust its coaching program to suit individual athletes so that they can achieve their best. Athletics clubs can be inclusive. A video featuring para-athlete Summer Giddings and her coach Matt Rawlings shows how it can be done. Matt makes this comment, “I just treated her like a normal person – which at the end of the day – she is a normal person.” He says the experience helps him as a coach as well. Summer says, “It’s not hard for clubs to be inclusive.” There is another video in the series showing how football brings together people from different cultural backgrounds. 

Colour combinations for everyone

A Sydney transport signboard with bright pink headings. Colour combinations for everyone. Observations during the 2011 Tsunami disaster in Japan showed that the colour of signage matters a lot. A short research paper outlines the colours and colour combinations that are easily seen and interpreted quickly by people who have one of the colour blindness conditions. The result is colour combinations for everyone.

A bright pink sign saying Wynyard and directions to the station.The results of this study and other colour studies are reflected in the Japanese standards for the paint, printing and design industries. The colour scheme-set contains 20 colours and is divided into groups depending on whether things are small scale or large scale. Bright pink turned out to be a colour for large signage.  For more on the colours go to the Open Journal of Social Science and download the five page article, “Color Barrier Free Displays in Disaster Situations”.

 

Architecture and Health

Picture of Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, London showing an open paved space with attractive buildings on all sidesIt would seem that green spaces are only part of the story when it comes to urban design and health. Beautiful buildings also rate highly according to a study in the UK. However, beautiful landscapes need to be enjoyed by the whole population. But we still have architects thinking of children, disability inclusion, and ageing as a ‘tacked on’ afterthought or special add-on feature. Architecture and health go together.

Obvious ramps and rails detract from the look of the building for everyone. People who need them don’t like the look either. Beauty is lost when a place excludes and is inaccessible. 

The Sourceable article by Steve Hansen explains how beautiful architecture positively affects health. Based on research findings, green space did not always gain top spot with residents in urban areas. Being green does not necessarily make it “scenic”. The research involved participants viewing photographs of open space and buildings and rating them as scenic or un-scenic. The conclusion is that “scenic-ness” is more important to health than just being green.

Architecture built to heal

Hospitals and and health facilities are supposed to make us well, but are they designed with healing in mind? Michael Murphy’s TED talk critiques the design of spaces for healing. He asks, “if hospitals are making people sicker, where are the architects and designers to help us build and design hospitals that allow us to heal?” Michael’s talk begins with how his father’s illness caused him to study architecture.

Watch the 15 minute video in the link below. A transcript is also available:

 

COVID-19 Screens and hearing augmentation

A man wearing a striped apron passes is behind an acrylic screen. A woman on the other side of the screen is paying for her goods.Acrylic screens have appeared at almost every reception desk in response to covid-safe requirements. But without related hearing augmentation installed, it makes it harder to hear each other.  If people are wearing masks as well, this makes it worse. 

We are familiar with screens at ticket offices, such as train stations, where hearing augmentation systems are mandatory. An article by Bruce Bromley explains how these new reception desk screens contravene the building code if they don’t have hearing augmentation. When businesses installed new screen, few, if any, thought about the communication problems they would cause. And if they did, they perhaps thought we could all live with it.  We need respond to this issue because being covid-safe looks like being a new normal. 

Any service or business that recently installed an acrylic screen at reception should look at finding a hearing augmentation system. It will benefit the receptionist and the customer. Plug and play solutions are available where there is a microphone and speaker on both sides of the screen. I suspect that these screens will not disappear even if and when covid does. It’s all part of adjusting to the “new normal”.

Editor’s comment: Sometimes I find myself or the receptionist ducking around the screen to hear and to be heard. So the screens only work some of the time.

Movement and Place: A guide

Front cover of movement and place guide. The design of the built environment can make or break a successful transportation system. Transport for NSW and the state government architect have updated their guide to movement and place to aid practitioners.  The guide aims to change some established ways of working so that we get better places and better outcomes. It outlines:
      • a collaborative method for practitioners, stakeholders, and the community 
      • shared responsibility and a shared language to support collaboration 
      • a process for implementing this approach in decisions and project types
      • criteria for measuring and evaluating movement and place now and in future projects
The Practitioner’s Guide to Movement and Place has three main sections. The introduction to the concept and implementing a place based approach cover the practicalities. The third section is more about understanding why this approach is important. The guide is necessarily technical in places and has a reference list at the end. Established working practices and standards are likely to change, according to the guide. It is asking professionals to think differently about their role in creating successful places.  The toolkit includes separate sections: Aligning Movement and Place.  Evaluators’ Guide to Movement and Place Practice notes and case studies Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a mention of accessibility and inclusion. I assume that practitioners will make this part of the process, but that means it will likely rely on existing standards.  Aboriginal custodians get a mention. And the movement and place appears to be more about infrastructure and budgets than people

Mobility Scooters in the Wild

picture of a woman on a mobility scooter trying to get under a barrier constructed to prevent vehicles and bicycles from entering the pathWhen it comes to accessibility in the built environment, wheelchair users get the most attention. Partly because the access icon looks like a wheelchair user, and partly because built environment standards are based around them. But what about users of other mobility devices? A long ramp might be no problem for a powered wheelchair user. However, walking a long ramp with a wheelie walker, or pushing a wheelchair is another matter. Mobility scooter users are another group often left out of design considerations. That’s just one issue raised in an article prepared for the UD2021 conference. The article is titled, Mobility Scooters in the Wild: Users resilience and innovation. It is based on qualitative research. The users’ experiences are illuminating for urban planners and public works staff. It is literally where the rubber meets the road. Published online by Griffith University. The article concludes that thoughtful attention to the planning, design and maintenance of places and spaces could minimise current obstacles to using powered mobility devices. These devices are also a low carbon transport option, but if the built environment poses barriers, it will be back to he private car or taxi.  Pedestrians on Wheels: A new paradigm is a related topic.

From the abstract

Recent research in Australia on powered mobility device users highlights that the built environment does not cater for their inclusion. In this paper, we examine how users are co-producing urban design is performed “out in the wild”. Electric powered mobility devices face similar legislative and regulatory issues to e-scooters and other niche innovations. The impact of climate change on energy systems is creating momentum for renewable power and smart systems. This will impact decisions and policies around electrified private and public transport infrastructure. It is important that powered mobility devices are not overlooked in planning for inter-modal electrified transport. National and international efforts to achieve safer and more sustainable “car free” cities need to include design for powered mobility device users. This could potentially provide spaces for greater inclusivity and social integration of powered mobility device users through the design of public and private spaces. An ageing population will encourage demand for technologies and accompanying infrastructure to facilitate mobility. Given the nexus of legality, energy, sustainability and ageing, it positions this paper’s focus as an integral linchpin to critically informed and inclusive urban design.