Inclusive Design: The Latest Architecture and News

One of the most important challenges in architecture, when it comes to creating spaces that work for everyone, is the diversity that exists in people, their needs, and how to integrate them into a design. Disabilities are more than a condition; they are a way of living according to human diversity that requires architectural solutions of equivalent multiplicity.

According to data from the World Bank, it is estimated that 1 billion people –equivalent to 15% of the world's population– live with some type of disability. In the future, this percentage could increase considerably, given the global trend of aging populations. To face this growing challenge, architecture will have to adapt quickly, due to the role that built environments have in constituting a barrier or a path for the inclusion of people with different types of disabilities, seniors, as well as diverse groups who make up the human plurality.

Foster + Partners Applied Research + Development team has created VARID (Virtual and Augmented Reality for Inclusive Design). Designed in collaboration with City, University of London (City) and UCL’s PEARL Lab, VARID is a design toolkit that uses virtual and augmented reality technologies. Its objective is to support academics, designers, and architects in better understanding how people with vision impairments perceive their environment.

One of the most radical instances of public space transformation happened recently. During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, public space transformed into “a medical resource, a distribution hub, an overflow space, a center of protest and resistance, a gym, a senior center, a community center, a daycare center, a schoolyard, a night club, a transportation corridor, an outdoor restaurant, a shopping mall, a children’s playground, an outdoor theater, a music venue, a nature center, and a place of belonging and ‘being at home.’”

The fabric of our cities is shaped by millions of small decisions and adaptations, many of which have become integral to our experience. Nowadays taken for granted, some of these elements were revolutionary at the time of their implementation. One such element is the curb cut, the small ramp grading down the sidewalk to connect it to the adjoining street, allowing wheelchair users and people with motor disabilities to easily move onto and off the sidewalk. This seemingly small adaptation has proven to be unexpectedly useful for a wider range of people, including parents with strollers, cyclists, delivery workers, etc. Consequently, it lends its name to a wider phenomenon, the “curb cut effect”, where accommodations and improvements made for a minority end up benefiting a much larger population in expected and unexpected ways.

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The UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 is an invitation for architects from around the world to meet in Copenhagen July 2 – 6 to explore and communicate how architecture influences all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For more than two years, the Science Track and its international Scientific Committee have been analyzing the various ways in which architecture responds to the SDGs. The work has resulted in the formulation of six science panels: design for Climate Adaptation, design for Rethinking Resources, design for Resilient Communities, design for Health, design for Inclusivity, and design for Partnerships for Change. An international call for papers was sent out in 2022 and 296 of more than 750 submissions from 77 countries have been invited to present at the UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 in Copenhagen. ArchDaily is collaborating with the UIA to share articles pertaining to the six themes to prepare for the opening of the Congress.

In this fifth feature, we met with co-chairs of design for Inclusivity architect Magda Mostafa, Professor of Design, Department of Architecture, the American University in Cairo and architect Ruth Baumeister, Associate Professor of Theory and History, Aarhus School of Architecture.

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Throughout the past decade, human civilization has become so ‘woke’ we’ve administered a new word for it. And while this new-found wokeness derives from the quest to spotlight the inherent, yet previously ignored by many, racial social, and political injustices and behaviors in our lives during the early #blacklivesmatter movement, in more recent times it has come to stand for the calling out of all categories of injustice.

The purpose of architecture, as the ArchDaily Guide to Good Architecture states, is to ‘give form to the places we live.’ The book’s first chapter, ‘Good Architecture is Considerate’, suggests in order to improve the quality of life provided by human-designed spaces, we need to employ a human and empathetic approach.

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“Economic shocks, climate change, and COVID-19 have changed transportation systems in a fundamental way. We can’t waste a crisis. We can increase access to transportation while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We can achieve more mobility with fewer impacts,” argued Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute (WRI), at the 20th annual Transforming Transportation conference. For two days, global leaders reflected on the state of transportation systems worldwide at the hybrid event in Washington, D.C., which was also watched by tens of thousands online. The event was co-organized by WRI and the World Bank.

Transportation still accounts for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and up to 30 percent of emissions in developed countries. Transportation is a diverse sector that includes sidewalks, bikes, cars, buses, trains, subways, ships, and planes.

New Orleans experiences the worst urban heat island effect in the country, with temperatures nearly 9 F° higher than nearby natural areas. The city also lost more than 200,000 trees from Hurricane Katrina, dropping its overall tree canopy to just 18.5 percent.

The non-profit organization Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL) partnered with landscape architects at Spackman Mossop Michaels (SMM) to create a highly accessible, equity-focused reforestation plan for the city that provides a roadmap for achieving a tree canopy of 24 percent by 2040. But more importantly, the plan also seeks to equalize the canopy, so at least 10 percent of all 72 neighborhoods are covered in trees. Currently, more than half of neighborhoods are under the 10 percent goal.

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While the United Nations has been continuously urging architects, engineers, and city shapers to put the 2030 agenda and the SDGs into action, and the IPCC report revealed intensifying climate change, sparking widespread discussion over insufficient action, the 83rd ongoing session of The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe - UNECE Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management taking place in San Marino, has just issued a special declaration on “how to build better, safer, more inclusive, and resilient" cities, ahead of COP27. This set of “Principles for Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Design and Architecture”, or the San Marino declaration has gathered the signatures of Norman Foster and Stefano Boeri.

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It is expected that by 2050, the rapid depletion of raw materials will leave the world without enough sand and steel to build concrete. On the other hand, the cost of building continues to soar, with an increase between 5% and 11% from last year. And with respect to its impact on the environment, the construction industry still accounts for 23% of air pollution, 50% of the climatic change, 40% of drinking water pollution, and 50% of landfill wastes. Evidently, the construction industry, the environment, and the human race are facing several challenges that are influenced by one another, but it is the human being who is at the greatest disadvantage.

As a response to global challenges such as climate change, discrimination, and physical vulnerability, designers and engineers from across the world have developed innovative construction materials that put the human wellbeing first in urban, architecture, and interior projects.  

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This article was originally published on Common Edge

Steven J. Orfield's firm, Orfield Laboratories (OL), has spent 50 years in architectural design, research, and testing, dedicated to the premise that what matters in design is the end user, because design in the absence of user comfort, preference, and satisfaction is a failure. In this process, the firm has developed building performance standards for most commercial building types, and has now added to those standards the requirements for half of the world: people who are perceptually and cognitively disabled (PCD). The expense in doing this has been significant, but it has been one of the most important quests in Orfield's life.

Aiming to transform the learning experience for neurodiverse students through a nature-centric environment, NBBJ has unveiled a net-zero school in Encino, California. Titled "Westmark Lower School", the new campus will foster an inclusive and engaging learning experience for students and teachers, responding to the critical condition of U.S students, where 2.3 million were diagnosed with learning differences between 2019 - 2020.

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Canada’s Department of National Heritage, along with the Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth Marci Ien, as well as the LGBT Purge Fund have unveiled “Thunderhead” as the winning concept of Ottowa's LGBTQ2+ National Monument competition. The winning design symbolizes a thunderhead cloud, which embodies the "strength, activism and hope of LGBTQ2+ communities, and will be a lasting testimony to the courage and humanity of those who were harmed by the LGBT Purge, homophobic, and transphobic laws and norms".

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