New South Wales said ‘no’

A white Labrador dog sleeps in front of level access to the alfresco. NSW said no.
Photo courtesy Taylor’d Distinction

The building ministers from each state and territory are a group of politicians who decide what goes into the National Construction Code. Their decisions are by majority rule. In April 2021 it was decided to adopt features similar to “silver level” in all new housing. However, there was one major dissenter – New South Wales said ‘no’. The Silver level refers to that in the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, ACT and Northern Territory will be adopting the features in their jurisdiction. South Australia and Western Australia say they need a bit more time. That leaves NSW. The features will be in the 2022 edition of the NCC ready for implementation in 2023. However, it is up to each state to enforce it.

Why is NSW saying ‘no’?

One thing the construction industry wants and needs is consistency across jurisdictions. The NSW decision goes against this. Many of the larger developers are already incorporating some of the silver features, and even some gold, in their newer designs. The decision by NSW does not support this. The NSW Housing Strategy 2041 specifically supports universal design in housing. The NSW decision contradicts this. It makes no sense. So what is, or who is, the stumbling block? In the response to advocates, Kevin Anderson’s office advised, in a nutshell, that they are already doing enough. However, when questioned for evidence of this, it was not forthcoming. Without such evidence NSW cannot claim they are “already doing it”.

Livable Housing Design: a DCP approach

How many local governments in New South Wales have Livable Housing Design Guidelines in their Development Control Plans (DCP)? And what mechanisms do developers use to find this information? With different terms being used for the same thing, how do developers navigate this environment? This is what Masters student Matthew Gee Kwun Chan wanted to find out. 

aerial view of three people at a desk looking at a set of construction drawings
Chan’s literature review is broad ranging covering the complexities of housing regulation both voluntary and mandated. That’s before acknowledging the many stakeholders in the housing supply system.

The recent change to the National Construction Code (NCC) to mandate LHDG “silver” level is discussed in the context of the refusal by New South Wales to adopt this change.

NSW Government claims increased cost as the reason for not adopting the changes. This claim is challenged by economists, activists and consumers. NSW Government responses indicate that they still view the LHDG as “disability housing” not a mainstream issue. Consequently they claim there are sufficient properties available in the market and in social housing to meet current and future demand.

Local government and DCPs

Councils create DCPs to provide detailed information for implementing Environmental Planning Instruments (EPI). Some councils can seek higher accessibility standards beyond the statutory minimum. However, Chan found that councils “fail to adopt LHDG in their DCPs despite making the argument for such in other council documents”. He provides an analysis of 24 selected councils to compare their development and planning documents.

Chan claims that conflicting terminology is not the issue here. Rather, it is the amount of information, or lack thereof, about LHDG in the DCPs and where to find out more. So, the barriers to implementation are not helped when professionals lack understanding of the requirements. This is exacerbated by minor conflicts between DCPs, LHDG and Australian Standards.

The regular reference to the Adaptable Housing Standard of 1995 is also unhelpful. Document analysis reveals that each Council has its own interpretation of the LHDG and how it relates to other instruments. In some cases the references are outdated. Reference to the public domain access standard (AS1428) further complicates matters.

Brightly coloured graphic of little houses clustered together
Out of the 24 LGAs with DCPs enacting LHDG, 2 present the silver level without the hobless shower, and 2 without a stairway handrail.

Chan found that on one hand councils wanted more accessible inclusive environments, including housing, but they also wanted group homes, seniors housing and boarding houses. Some councils only encourage dwellings to LHDG while others require additional features as in the Gold and Platinum levels.

Case study

Four Sydney suburban development sites were studied: Berowra Heights, Darlinghurst, Miranda and Roseville. The analysis is necessarily technical and detailed and shows how many regulatory instruments planners and designer need to heed. The need to have an accredited assessor for some dwellings adds another step in the approval process.

There is an argument here for rationalising these instruments, particularly those relating to the design of dwellings. In the final part of the thesis, Chan challenges the NSW Government’s refusal to adopt the design features in the 2022 NCC. His rationale is that individual councils are trying to solve the problems themselves and refusal to adopt the NCC changes works against them. This is what has brought about differing provisions using different instruments across the system. And it won’t get better without adopting the silver level in the NCC.

The complexity of applying LHDG in DCPs could be solved by adopting the changes to the NCC. This would clear up most of the complexities, create a level playing field and give certainty to developers. 

Conclusions and recommendations

The thesis concludes with many recommendations. Some are related to revision of standards and related instruments. One of the recommendations for councils is to include the LHDG in their DCPs for all housing. The recommendations for the NSW Government appear to be “workarounds” on the basis of not adopting the NCC changes. The title of the thesis is, To Promote or to Limit Livable Housing Design Guidelines within Development Control Plans is the question for governments and built environmental professionals. It is available for download in Word, or download as a PDF. There is also a spreadsheet of all the councils showing those with and without DCPs requiring dwellings to LHDG.

We ain’t getting any younger

Part of the front cover of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines Why are we still building homes as if we never going to grow old? This question and others are the subject of a Building Connection magazine article about the purpose of Livable Housing Australia and their design guidelines. These guidelines, devised by industry and other stakeholders, clearly state that universal design features are easily included in regular housing and don’t need to be considered “special” just because they suit people who are older or have a disability. That’s because the features are convenient and easy to use for everyone. But why hasn’t the idea caught on in mainstream housing? 

More than half Australian households would benefit from these features. That’s because If you add together the number of older people, people with disability and those with a chronic health conditions, it comes to more than 60%. The title of the magazine article on page 42 is, We ain’t getting any younger.    

ISO Standards for Tourism and Travel

A wheelchair user has access to the beach with the Council beach mat. Standards for tourism.
Photo courtesy Hobsons Bay City Council

Standards documents are rarely light reading. Similarly to legal documents they aren’t designed for skim reading. And they are rarely in plain language. However, if you can take the time to study standards and understand their structure, they are very helpful. The International Standards Organization (ISO) standards for tourism and travel are a case in point. 

Standard for Tourism and Related Services

Tourism is a global enterprise. It makes sense, therefore, for travellers to know what to expect when they go on holiday to any country. This is especially the case for people with disability. ISO recognises the economics of accessible and inclusive travel and consequently devised a standard. As an international standard it is possible to get some consistency across countries to support this growing industry. 

The title of the standard is, ISO Standard for Tourism and Related Services – Accessible tourism for all – requirements and recommendations. This document is based on the concept of ‘tourism for all”. The aim is to ensure equal access and enjoyment is experienced by everyone. It has key aspects of policy making, strategy, infrastructure, products and services in the tourism supply chain. A related standard is the Standard for Accessible Travel.

Standard for Accessible Travel

The ISO Standard for Accessible Travel has 5 key sections with sub-sections. 

    • The tourist office – When new to a city, often the first port of call is the tourist information office to make a plan of where to go and what to see. See the section on information offices and reception services. 
    • Accessibility every step of the journey – Most operators want people to enjoy their experiences. The guidelines for tourism and related services help operators with policy making, strategy, infrastructure, products and services. It’s about the whole tourism supply chain. It’s the overarching guide for tourism services.
    • Beaches for all –  the requirements and recommendations for beach operation is another subsection. It also outlines recommendations for the design of access ramps and boardwalks, toilets, showers and drinking fountains.
    • Tourism for all the senses – Braille is understood all over the world. There is a subsection on the application of Braille signage and for assistive products including tactile ground indicators. 
    • Accessibility in all standards – The Guide for addressing accessibility in standards is a standard for all other standards. Standards committees should be aware of this standard when they are devising a new standard or updating an old one. 

A toolkit from Ireland

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland’s toolkit on improving tourism business by applying the principles of universal design. The video below shows four case studies that reduced their complaints and increased their sales by following the advice in the toolkit which covers:

  • Business Objectives and Overview
  • Written Communication
  • Face-to-Face, Telephone & Video Communication
  • Electronic & Web Based Communication 

You can see more on the toolkit page of the CEUD website. There is also an Irish Standard, I.S.373:2013 “Universal Design for Customer Engagement in Tourism Services” available from SAI Global. 

Mapping the inconveniences of urban life

A man in a wheelchair is separated from the crowd by a low concrete barrier Town access audits are not new, but these alone do not gauge accessibility for everyone.  Mapping the inconveniences of urban life for people with disability gives a better understanding of why isolated access features are insufficient to provide access for everyone. Access features are required in new works and major refurbishments. That means a lot of infrastructure remains inaccessible in our cities. It also means that accessible places aren’t joined up very well, or not at all.  In a book chapter about the urban circle of life of people with disability, Katarzyna Ujma-Wasowicz explains her mapping project.  The project involved a diverse group of people with disability. The aim was to see how they navigate the built environment. This sounds like a simple and obvious thing to do, but few planners and architects do this. 

The mapping process

The mapping process involves the person with disability specifying a path from home to a destination and back home again. An auditor or researcher follows the person and takes detailed notes along the way. The results of these observations can inform decisions about the most critical rectifications needed.  Ujma-Wasowicz acknowledges that designers think, “in best faith” about access for each disability group independently. At the end of the chapter she has a section on Post-Pandemic and Universal Design. Ujma-Wasowicsz notes that COVID has changed our behaviours but these changes don’t affect everyone equally. She proposes a universal design approach for design strategies in the summary. 

 “Therefore, a holistic approach to planning is necessary, where one of its elements should be audit of public spaces accessibility. The “urban circle of life” can be a useful tool for such inspection.”

The title of the article is, The Urban Circle of Life of People with Disabilities: Mapping urban inconveniences.  The chapter and the book, Mapping Urban Spaces is available online from Taylor Francis. It is open access.  This is a wordy read, but worth the effort if wanting to replicate this process and model. Although some local councils have embarked on similar exercises, there is little written about them in the literature.   

Measure exclusion to get inclusive transport

People walking on a wide pedestrian crossing. They are blurred as if they are walking quickly. Measure exclusion to get inclusive transport.It’s easy to measure the things we can see, but not so easy to measure the things we can’t see. So how do you measure the people who don’t use public transport? And how then can you measure why they don’t? When it comes to travellers with disability we have to measure exclusion to get inclusive transport. But how can we do this? Bridget Burdett has some thoughts on this thorny issue. In a Linked In article she poses a ‘hierarchy of response’: reactive advocacy, consultative planning and proactive inclusion. 
A graphic showing the hierarchy of response.
Hierarchy of response. Bridget Burdett
Reactive advocacy is when people with disability demand  accessible transport. This is usually when things are really obvious. Some changes are made, such as adding a ramp, and then the fuss dies down, but not much else changes.  Consultative planning involves asking people with disability what they need. Disability advocacy groups are invited to give their stories and opinions. Similarly to putting in a ramp, it makes decision-makers feel they are doing a good job. Proactive inclusion is where transport planners understand and measure the problem. Of course, it still requires advocacy and consultation.  Burdett explains how to measure exclusion based on the number of mobility aids present in the community. The title of the article is, Until we measure exclusion we won’t get inclusive transport. Bridget Burdett is a transport planner and chair of the Transportation Group New Zealand. There are links to Bridget’s case studies on transport and disability. There are more posts on transportation in the Transportation Special Summer edition of the CUDA newsletter.  Also by Bridget Burdett, Transportation: You get what you measure. 

Housing and Indigenous disability: Lived experience

A small house with a large veranda sits on orange soil in a remote location. Indigenous people need accessible housing.All new housing should be designed for accessibility to the silver level of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. This is one of the recommended policy actions from AHURI research on housing and Indigenous disability. A systematic inspection process for new builds to ensure compliance with the guidelines is also needed. They also recommend a new classification in the building code for “housing for Indigenous people”.

Researchers found housing conditions were poor, inaccessible and that few people were aware of modifications for making life easier. 

Indigenous Australians have a high rate of disability and chronic illness but there is little housing available to support them. Disability is under-reported in this population, particularly in remote areas. This is because the concept of disability varies between urban and rural locations. In urban areas where people know about the NDIS their understanding of disability is similar to the non-indigenous population. Remote communities relate to disability as wheelchairs.

The title of the executive summary is, Housing and Indigenous disability: lived experiences of housing and community infrastructure.  The AHURI website has the full report, a positioning paper and a policy bulletin.

Note that since this publication, the Livable Housing Design Standard has been mandated in the 2022 National Construction Code. It has the Silver features of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. 

Making Mosques Accessible

People at the mosque door taking off their shoes. One person is sitting. Making mosques accessible.
Bolo Hauz Mosque in Uzbekistan.

The classic design of a mosque makes access difficult for people who have difficulty with mobility, removing shoes, hearing the call to prayer, and generally using facilities. The three critical elements for making mosques accessible are the prayer hall, the ablution area and sanitary facilities. 

People cannot enter the mosque with a personal mobility device or shoes. This is to stop dirt from the outside entering the mosque. But it also creates major barriers, especially for older people. The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, is keen to promote the inclusion of people with disability in all aspects of life. Consequently, the Ministry of Community Development commissioned an access plan and that includes mosques. As a result, Nazem Fawzi Al-Mansoor has come up with a checklist for making mosques accessible. 

The title of the short conference paper with the checklist is, Universal Mosque/Masjid Design. It was presented at the 3rd Universal Design Conference held in UK in 2016.

The checklist includes some basic features found anywhere such as the width of doorways. Seats for shoe removal, space to park mobility devices, and an accessible ablution area feature in the list. 

Mosque detailMosque detail
Mosque BukharaMosque Bukhara

Photos: Bolo Hauz Mosque, Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Beyond minimum standards

Urban landscape with shade trees and lots of casual seating with people sitting. Going beyond minimum standards.Why does the design of built environment continue to fail people with disability? Many have asked this question since Selwyn Goldsmith raised it in the 1960s. Many have found answers. But these are not enough to make a difference to the results. New buildings continue to pose barriers in spite of regulations and standards. Going beyond minimum standards is therefore a big ask.  Imogen Howe, an architect with 10 years experience, wants to find the answer in her PhD study. Her research questions are something we can all think about:
    • Why and how does the Australian built environment continue to marginalise people with disabilities, despite the Disability Discrimination Act (1992)?
    • How does building design reproduce exclusion and segregation? How is this underpinned by design assumptions and approaches both contemporary and historic?
    • Do building and design codes in Australia, NZ, Canada and the UK address dignity?
    • How do we educate becoming architects about the need for inclusive design and then how to enact it in their designs?
References are made to key thinkers and writers on the topic such as Amie Hamraie, C.W. Mills, Jos Boys and Michel Foucault.  These questions are posed in an article framed as a discussion piece in Academia.edu. The key provocations for the discussion are: eugenics and stigma in design, society structures, and how could this be different. The title of the article is, “The need for inclusive design: going beyond the minimum standards in the built environment”.

Beyond compliance with universal design

Front cover of the guide. A guide book from Ireland on the built environment draws together Irish standards with a practical universal design approach. Many of the standards mirror those in Australia so most of the information is compatible. Parking, siting, pedestrian movement, steps, ramps, lifts, seating and bollards are all covered.  Building for Everyone, External environment and approach covers each of the features in detail. While the style of tactile indicators varies from the Australian design, the advice on placement is still useful. There is a reference list of related documents including Australian Standards. The guide is undated, but probably published circa 2010. This means some of the technology, such as parking ticket machines is a little outdated. There is also a section at the end on human abilities and design. It covers walking, balance, handling, strength and endurance, lifting, reaching, speech, hearing, sight, touch and more. Published by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland it is very detailed. Checklists help guide the reader through the material. This booklet links with others in the series, particularly the one on entrances and circulation spaces. The good aspect of these guides is the perspective of a universal design approach rather than proposing prescriptive design parameters.

Universal design approach to transportation

Much of our transportation infrastructure was designed last century when the focus was on getting people to work and school. People with disability were not considered as part of the working or school populations at that time. But times have changed and “average” must evolve to “inclusive” because there is no such thing as the average user. The time has come for a universal design approach to transportation.

Universal design makes transit stations more functional for a wider range of people, based not only on disability but also on factors such as age and size. It helps all users navigate unfamiliar environments.

Train station entry hall in China.

A magazine article on inclusive transit systems suggests one way to think about the transit system is to recall an experience in another country. Was it easy to use? Did you feel you could confidently and independently navigate your way to your destination? How was buying a ticket? If you got confused, potentially, new users will be confused at home too. These are good benchmarks for home country design. 

The more intuitive, accessible, language-neutral and understandable the transit environment becomes, the more everyone benefits.

A scene of the station showing people near the ticket barrier gates.

Transit Universal Design Guidelines

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines (TUDG) promote the value of implementing a universal design approach that supports all user groups. And it doesn’t start and end at the station door. The environment leading up to the transit system must be part of the plan. That includes footpaths. The article picks out three key elements.

Key elements

User Groups: consider who you are ultimately designing for. This section includes accommodations required to satisfy the needs of specific user groups. This includes individuals with visual, hearing, speech, or mobility disabilities and needs, among others.

Aspects of Accommodation: identify features and techniques that can enhance the end user experience — from handrails, to hearing assistant systems, to tactile pathways, to mobile ticketing apps.

Implementation: understand the process and approach for implementing universal design through advocacy, engagement, and evaluating and finalizing design options. With this approach, transit agencies can attract new and retain existing ridership and provide solutions that are inclusive and universal from the start.

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines are comprehensive and stretch to 53 pages. The document aims to be a decision-making tool for transit agencies, designers and policy-makers.

The title of the article is, Designing More Inclusive, Accessible Transit Systems for All. 

For more information on accessible and inclusive transit systems and transportation, check out the the Transportation section of this website. 

A Melbourne tram moves along a quiet street after the rain. A cyclist is in the background.

Tactile or 3D?

A metal model showing a town layout in relief with Braille on buildings and streets. There is a church and lots of houses and a town square represented.Which type of map is best – tactile or 3D? Three researchers from Monash University carried out a study to see if 3D printed models offered more information than tactile graphics such as maps. There were some interesting findings that were presented in a conference paper. The abstract gives a good overview:

From the abstract

Tactile maps are widely used in Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training for people are blind or have low vision. Commodity 3D printers now offer an alternative way to present accessible graphics. However it is unclear if 3D models offer advantages over tactile equivalents for 2D graphics such as maps.

In a controlled study with 16 touch readers, we found that 3D models were preferred, enabled the use of more easily understood icons, facilitated better short term recall and allowed relative height of map elements to be more easily understood.

Analysis of hand movements revealed the use of novel strategies for systematic scanning of the 3D model and gaining an overview of the map. Finally, we explored how 3D printed maps can be augmented with interactive audio labels, replacing less practical braille labels. Our findings suggest that 3D printed maps do indeed offer advantages for O&M training. 

The full title of the paper is, “Accessible Maps for the Blind: Comparing 3D Printed Models with Tactile Graphics“.  The article is also available on ResearchGate. 

Manchester and Brussels: A place to grow old

A city square in Belgium showing heritage architecture. People are milling about in the square in Brussels.
Brussels city square

The WHO Age Friendly Cities and Communities framework remains a robust method for creating age-friendly places. We can learn a lot from cities that signed up to the WHO Global Network that began in 2007. A book chapter compares Brussels and Manchester as a place to grow old. It shows that different policy approaches result in quite different outcomes.

The first part of the chapter covers introductory material and detail about the 8 domains of the WHO program. The interesting part, especially for local government, is the comparison of approaches and outcomes for Brussels and Manchester. Brussels, for example, focused on social housing for older people and street safety. Manchester focused on lifetime neighbourhoods and quality of life.

Manchester was more inclusive of different ethnic backgrounds than Brussels which also has a diverse population. In short, Brussels was about keeping people safe, and Manchester was about living life. The paper goes on to discuss the barriers to implementing the programme and developing age-friendly policies. There are some good recommendations at the end of this paper which was published in 2015. 

The chapter title is, Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Case Studies from Brussels and Manchester and Implications for Policy and Practice. It begins on page 277.This chapter is one of several interesting papers in Environmental Gerontology in Europe and Latin America.  

You can find out more about the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group and a short video on what they are aiming to achieve. 

WHO Age Friendly Cities

WHO age friendly logo of 8 petals showing the 8 domains of life.Age Friendly Cities has its founding concepts in healthy ageing. Well if it’s healthy for older people it’s healthy for everyone. These cities should be walkable, compact and have infrastructure that supports liveability. But planning laws haven’t this and continue to address ageing in terms of age-segregated living arrangements. 

Canada was at the forefront of the development of the WHO Age Friendly Cities program in 2006. But that hasn’t been enough to overcome entrenched planning and development processes. No Place to Grow Old: How Canadian Suburbs Can Become Age-Friendly, found that although planners and others have concerns about an ageing population, their thinking hasn’t adapted. Consequently, little has changed in the last ten years. 

The survey found that older people were seen as a special-needs group rather than establishing inclusive policy solutions. The report makes some useful recommendations and the findings are applicable to any urban area in any location.

You can find a list of Australian cities or communities that are members of the WHO Global Network of Age Friendly Cities on the WHO website. You can also find out how your community can become a member of the Global Network.

The graphic above depicts the 8 domains of life that need to be considered in making a community age-friendly.