Renovating for a Greener, More Accessible Future
Principles of Universal Design
Among the minimum criteria for socially sustainable architecture, says IHCD’s Fletcher, is accessibility. “Accessibility is just a baseline; it’s a floor,” she explains, “while universal design is only a bump up from accessibility.” While Fletcher encourages building designs that evolve into “transformative” solutions for socially sustainable design, the principles of universal design, as defined by North Carolina State University’s The Center for Universal Design, provide additional guidance on directions to achieve such design breakthroughs.
The basic definition of universal design, according to the North Carolina State group, is an environment that is “usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.” The school offers seven principles that can be used to evaluate existing building designs, inform the process of designing new environments, as well as educating end-users on the best building and interior concepts:
1. Equitable use. This refers to designs allowing end-users with diverse abilities to use the building and amenities in equivalent ways. Ideally the means of use are identical, which helps avoid the “segregating or stigmatizing any users” and ensures that privacy, security, safety and other architectural benefits can be available to all occupants or visitors.
2. Flexibility of use. Consider the needs of right-handed vs. left-handed users: The best product or building design will not require one or the other to switch. Instead, the building should adapt to the handedness, strength, pace and other natural proclivities of any end-user.
3. Simple and intuitive. Similarly, the best designs work well “regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.” In this way, architecture is most effective when it is easy-to-use and consistent with user expectations and intuition. Safety precautions, for example, should not require the use to read.
4. Perceptible information. That concept relates also to the user’s sensory abilities under a variety of ambient conditions — darkness, for example. A mix of tactile, physical, pictorial and verbal safety precautions can be used to make a building safer for an entire and diverse population under emergency conditions. Add to that technologies — such as devices used by people with hearing or sight challenges — and the maximum information is available to the building population during a fire or other event, with sensory limitations.
5. Tolerance for error. Clearly, buildings should minimize “hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions,” as well. In the built environment, this may include removing, isolating or shielding hazardous conditions to protect occupants.
6. Low physical effort. This principle is guiding the design of universal-height toilets like those used at the Washington, D.C., monument as well as door handles, window operation and many other user interface situations. As the Center for Universal Design recommends, designs should allow for efficient and comfortable use without undue fatigue — a great benefit for senior and young populations alike.
7. Size and space for approach and use. Principle seven is similar to an admonition to use good ergonomics. All building features should match human needs to the extent possible, including for “approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user’s body size, posture, or mobility.”
The Principles of Universal Design offer an effective framework for universally usable design. But as seasoned architects and experts like Fletcher attest, building design will always bring more to the table for socially sustainable outcomes: economic, engineering, cultural, gender, and environmental concerns are among the many that impact the architect’s decisions.
Fletcher points out that disability is contextual. According to the World Health Organization, neither the medical model — where disability is seen as a feature of the person that requires treatment — nor the social model, which assumes that the “problem is created by an unaccommodating physical environment,” is fully adequate. Instead, the WHO concluded almost a decade ago that “disability is always an interaction between features of the person and features of the overall context in which the person lives.” A biopsychosocial model is more effective at describing the challenges for the broad population.
“With this in mind, the issues are no longer framed as being about people in wheelchairs — that is, a small number of people who require a facilitating environment,” Fletcher contends. “Human-centered design is about creating and imagining a new and different environment that is ultimately transformative. And while standards are valuable, we prefer enticement and precedent to achieve these goals.”
ENDNOTES | |
1. | www.ornl.gov/sci/buildings/2010/Session%20PDFs/155_New.pdf |
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