Category: Research papers for built environment

Walkability has been the focus of good public spaces to encourage physical health. However, the recent pandemic increased our awareness of the need for urban design for mental health. The Aging City Edition of the Journal of Urban Design and Mental Health looks at the dimension of cognitive decline. Here’s what’s in the 7th edition of this academic publication:

The Editorial focuses on the need for new directions in interdisciplinary research. 

Dementia-friendly neighbourhoods is about the methodological challenges and opportunities. 

The role of green spaces in preventing cognitive decline calls for “research-by-design”.

Older residents’ mental health status is compared in suburbs versus traditional neighbourhoods is compared to find key design solutions. 

Case studies include Guy Luscombe’s Age n Dem Toolkit, the role of community square dancing in China, and a look at design culture to to empower older people. City Case Studies are Lagos and Sydney. 

Although this is an academic journal, the research and findings provide direction for urban planners and support the need for more pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods. 

Urban planning and Coronavirus

The daily disadvantage of marginalised groups is more clearly revealed as others fall into the ranks of disadvantage during this pandemic.  A discussion paper from Berkeley argues that this current pandemic is an opportunity to consider similar urban health reforms that followed previous epidemics. Promoting inclusive and healthy cities for all is the bottom line in this thoughtful discussion.

The discussion paper takes the perspective of people with functional limitations. For many people worldwide, disability is about health, human rights, and poverty. It’s an urban development issue and time to move from the medical model to the social model of disability. Also discussed are how people with disability are left out of economic responses, such as one-off support payments, and not included in planning to prevent future crises.

The authors provide recommendations for how this pandemic can best support people with disability and how this makes cities healthier for all. They warn that pandemics also run the risk of exacerbating further marginalisation through racism and segregation. The abstract below is the essence of the paper.

The title of the paper is, Disability, Urban Health Equity, and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Promoting Cities for All

 

Are pedestrians getting a fair share for walking and wheeling on our streets? Or are they forced to drive because footpaths are either not present or poorly maintained? Lack of seating, shade, and too few pedestrian crossings all add to a preference to take the car. More significantly, poor pedestrian infrastructure prevents people with disability and older people from making the journey at all.

Todd Litman summarises the key points in a research paper from the US, which looked at walking rates among countries. The graph below shows Australia and the US at the bottom of the list.

The percentage of total trips made by walking by country

People who cannot drive or own a car are most disadvantaged because they have little choice but to walk or wheel. If the infrastructure is unsupportive or feels unsafe, many will avoid an area or just not make the journey. Consequently the prevalence of disability is invisible to planners.

Assumptions about older people all living in aged care also makes invisible the 95% of older people living in the community. However, plans or designs recommended as suited to aged care locations can, and should, be applied throughout the community.

Why people don’t walk

A graph from Litman shows the reasons people don’t walk by age group. The graph supports statistics of prevalence of health issues in the community. While it is expected that older age groups would cite health as a reason for not walking more, 25-30% of younger age groups also cite health.

Not feeling safe due to traffic is another factor with an average of 40% saying this is an issue. The lower statistical count on this question for older people is likely due to only making journeys where they feel safe as they are more risk averse.

Walkability solutions

The solutions rest on a connected network of footpaths and to services such as shops, cafes, and medical centres within walking distance. These footpaths need to clearly separate pedestrians from cyclists and motor vehicles. Shared paths are particularly problematic for older people, people with dogs, and people with vision and hearing impairments.

The title of the Todd Litman article is Fair share for walking. He mentions universal design standards for footpaths that are smooth and wide. They also need kerb ramps compliant to standards for all pedestrians. Cost arguments need to be met with counter arguments of the human and environmental cost of not creating pedestrian environments that encourage walking and wheeling.

The research paper mentioned in the Litman article is titled Overview of Walking Rates, Walking Safety and Government Policies to Encourage More and Safer Walking in Europe and North America. European countries have shown the way on how to encourage walking and wheeling.

From the abstract

This paper documents variation in walking rates among countries, cities in the same country, and in different parts of the same city.

Our international analysis shows that walking rates are highest for short trips, higher for women than for men, decline with increasing income, and remain constant as age increases. Walking fatality rates are much higher in the USA compared with the other countries we examined, both per capita and per km walked.

Government policies for increasing walking rates and improving pedestrian safety include: integrated networks of

• safe and convenient walking infrastructure;
• roadways and intersections designed for the needs of pedestrians;
• land-use regulations that encourage mixed uses and short trip distances;
• lower city-wide speed limits and traffic calming in residential neighborhoods;
• reduced supply and increased price of parking;
• traffic laws that give priority to pedestrians;
• improved traffic education for motorists and non-motorists;
• tax surcharges on large personal vehicles; and
• strict enforcement of laws against drink and distracted driving.

How about introducing architecture to children and teenagers in school as a means of getting better architecture? Teachers can use architecture as a learning resource for other subjects as well. De-a Arhitectura Association thinks bringing teenagers and architecture together is a good idea. It’s also a good way to give voice to children and teenagers and what they want from the built environment.

The way professionals understand the built environment and the way the public see it are quite different. One group often left out of consultations is teenagers. Consequently, De-a Arhitectura set about finding out how to give voice to teens.

Using workshop methods, participants analysed their city for facilities and how it feels to be in the city. One workshop focused on the experience of pushing a stroller, being in a wheelchair, and pulling luggage. The research paper describes the workshop methods used in the project.

The follow up project provided a way to raise awareness that teenagers perspective should matter. Teenagers have a language of their own and the researchers found they had energy and innovative ideas. They engaged younger and older people in their lives in the stories they create. And they provided a fresh angle or perspective on things.

The researchers conclude that teenagers have their own visions and benefits from interacting with public space and the activities they carry out.

The title of the paper is, Empowering Teenagers Through Built Environment Education While Experimenting (In)The Public Space. Published in the proceedings of the 2023 World Congress of Architects.

From the abstract

Teenagers may not be the most obvious left-out category of people, but in the design and use of public spaces they are often left out. Public space belongs to everyone, yet teenagers have few ways make their voices heard. How do they demand their own space, which represents their identities and offers a creative and comfortable environment in which they can socialise and evolve?

De-a Arhitectura Association began to develop the Urban Up educational program in 2016. It was a starting point in diversifying its portfolio with teenagers, aiming to be inclusive of all categories and backgrounds.

Throughout the past years, Urban Up has tried to hear their wishes and expectations from the built environment and the public spaces they use. We used different hands-on activities (extracurricular) and with a design thinking methodology for improving their schools.

Trying to constantly find better communication channels and to reduce the generational distances, we started a fellowship program for students in different study fields connected to the built environment (multidisciplinary teams), in order to bring teenagers and young adults together.

The students became mentors for the high school students, in workshops they co-designed, aiming to engage them in better understanding and using public spaces. It is our belief that the more aware and involved teenagers are today, the more active and responsible citizens they will be tomorrow.

A student in the Netherlands has attempted to get to grips with the complex area of architectural design for dementia. Iga Potok’s research is based on two case studies of community living in Europe. She wanted to find out how architectural design can provide stimuli to prevent or delay cognitive impairments. In addition, Potok looked at dwelling design, and neighbourhood design that fosters contact between generations.

The second case study is WohnProjekt Wien Co-Housing in Vienna, which used the same three part method. Part 1: Collaborative building processes and opinions. Part 2: Design of communal spaces, and Part 3: Design of living and half private spaces. This collaborative housing project is home for 67 adults and 25 children.

Some conclusions from the study

Feeling like part of a community was the most significant overlap across the ages. Residents in both housing projects put emphasis on communal functions in the bousing block. Opportunities for social interaction were supported by visual connections between all floors and a sufficient amount of light. Combining multiple collective functions and placing them in a visible location next to busy circulation spaces maximised their use.

The intergenerational aspect was important for all generations. Various apartment types and sizes allows for a healthy mix of people from all walks of life. Flexibility of apartment design offers multiple possible arrangements and future-proofs the space.

In terms of preventing cognitive decline, social interaction was the key element. Architectural design that inspires physical movement reduces the probability of developing dementia and depression. That’s the conclusion of the author.

The title of this chapter of the thesis is Prevention of Cognitive Impairments Through Architectural Design.

The chapter is presented as an illustrated book with many drawings and sketches. With some text presented as drawings, and small font, the accessibility of the document is not optimum. Indeed, some of the script-like text is difficult to read even with good eyesight.

The economic value of public toilet facilities is often overlooked. We all have to go sometime and some of us sooner and more quickly than others. The availability of clean public toilets can make or break a shopping trip or social outing. People with bladder problems will restrict their movements to where they know the toilets are.

The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design had a good look at this issue. Their report outlines how they went about finding an alternative model for high street toilets. The project was titled, Engaged: a toilet on every high street.

The research explored how this idea would fit into current systems and infrastructure. People within retail, community safety, government and urban design were consulted. Then they spoke with council officers to see how they could make it happen.

Pub staff responsible for toilets talked about the problems with toilets. Public toilet provision is complex. A lot can go wrong. The aim therefore was to understand what the public want, what councils can achieve and where the pitfalls are.

The key areas or outcomes for Engaged were the issues of:

The report explains these dot points in greater detail using case studies, and accessible toilets are included in the discussions as well as criminal behaviour.

Everyone needs a toilet

Everyone needs to use the toilet, and people shouldn’t be ‘designed out’. People who spend all day outside, such as rough-sleepers, rely more on public toilets than most. Yet privately-owned, publicly-accessible toilets may not be accessible to them, either from exclusion or from feeling that they would be permitted. Other groups who may feel excluded include teenagers and people of colour. Discrimination that associates groups with anti-social or criminal behaviour reduces the number of toilets that people can access.

The researchers found their findings match similar surveys by the Bathroom Manufacturers Association, and AgeUK London. ‘High streets’ was the main location where respondents thought public toilets were not good enough (70%), ahead of parks (47%). This data is useful for showing the value that public toilets bring to the high street. If people leave early due to a lack of toilets, that will hurt businesses and the wider community, as well as limiting people’s participation and quality of life.

The title of the report is, Engaged: a toilet on every high street. The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design did the research published by the Royal College of Art. It is a good example of talking to stakeholders before even thinking about solutions.

Everybody poops

A Canadian briefing paper, Everybody Poops: Public toilets are a community issue, covers similar ground. Although these facilities are an important part of the community, local authorities are not keen to provide them. Solutions are around advocacy and partnerships. The paper has a link to The Safer Bathroom Toolkit, which has a focus on people who use substances.

There are many tools for measuring environmental sustainability features in the built environment. But measuring access for all, is based on legislation and cost rather than user-based. Indeed, building standards for disability access have filled this knowledge gap but in the process, held back learning at the same time. That’s because you learn how to complete checklists but you don’t gain understanding of the issues this way. This is one reason that architect Mary Ann Jackson says built environment practitioners do not understand disability.

Built environment knowledge and the lived experience of people with disability need connection. We need a tool that measures the overall accessibility of the built environment by incorporating the lived experiences of people with disability.

Increasingly, assessment of the built environment is becoming interdiciplinary. However, despite all the many built environment performance tools, input from people with disability are often left out of the equation. The move to co-design methods for new work is helpful, but does little to deal with existing built environments.

The title of Jackson’s 2019 article is, Accessing the Neighbourhood: Built Environment Performance for People with Disability. It explains the rationale behind the the development of the Universal Mobility Index. The key aim is to address the fragmented nature of current access across all areas of the built environment.

From the abstract

The existing built environment still fails to meet the needs of people with disability. This is despite rapid urbanisation, population ageing, failing infrastructure, and evidence that the built environment affects health and well-being,

In a parallel universe, improving built environment ‘sustainability’ performance, via measurement, receives much attention. Analysing the built environment at micro-scale (buildings), meso-scale (neighbourhood) and macro-scale (city-wide) is undertaken from various multidisciplinary perspectives.

Built environment performance is measured in many ways, but accessibility performance for people with disability, at neighbourhood scale, is rarely considered.

People with disability continue to experience lack of meaningful involvement in research, participation in decision-making, partnership equality, and direct influence over policy, with the built environment arena increasingly becoming a private-sector activity.

The actors involved, however, have little understanding of either the accessibility needs of people with disability, or the inaccessibility, particularly at neighbourhood scale, of the existing built environment.

This paper explores the design, planning and politics of an inaccessible built environment. Assessing the accessibility of the built environment for people with disability, at neighbourhood scale, is an essential component in the process of built environment accessibility improvement. As a result of collaboration between the domains of the built environment and disability, a new tool, Universal Mobility Index, has emerged and is undergoing further development.