Designing for accessibility and inclusivity
My Session Status
Ramps and curb cuts often first come to mind when one thinks about how the built environment is designed for people with disabilities. Accessible designs, however, need to account for individuals that may not be restricted in terms of mobility but live with other impairments such as blindness or neurological and cognitive conditions. Ideally, an architectural design will allow all users to feel as though they are included and not judged. This session seeks to examine how buildings, landscapes, and urban spaces are designed to accommodate users living with disabilities. Papers can address architects who design new and rehabilitated structures as well as activist groups that seek to improve the existing built environment. This panel is open to analyses of historic or contemporary architecture and a range of methodological and theoretical approaches.
Sub Sessions
When talking about the built environment that perpetuates a heterocentric narrative, it is not possible to avoid the segregation of the sexes in public washrooms, one for the male sex and the other for the female sex. This has direct repercussions on the inclusion of queer people, on their comfort and even on their security. However, the laws imposing this separation in Canada were not enacted until the end of the 19th century, not as an instrument of segregation but rather a symbol of the...
The future of development in peri-urban/rural areas and our cities depends on how we respond to the challenges of today. Due to population growth and migration pressure, two of the most pressing problems of urbanization in rural communities are poverty and environmental degradation (Marshall et al., 2009). To counteract the problems of urbanization, community planning and co-creation through value-inclusive design are proposed as essential to developing healthy and sustainable towns and ci...
In 1972 with a change in provincial government, the architectural plans for the development of a central and significant portion of downtown Vancouver shifted from a proposed tall tower to a tower laying down on its side. Arthur Erickson’s re-design of the Robson Square Complex was premised upon this significant shift towards horizontality as a central feature of civic design. The link between horizontality and accessibility was foregrounded by Erickson in his proposed re-design. This pape...
