Professional Practice: Universal Design

If we want everyone to participate in public life, we must design and build an inclusive public realm that is accessible to all. Public life can’t just be available to the abled, young, or healthy.
It is important to note that person’s abilities are changing across one’s lifespan and that everyone navigates the built environment differently. Applying more widely universal design principles will help the global population of people with physical, auditory or visual disabilities, autism or neurodevelopmental and/or intellectual disabilities, or neuro-cognitive disorders to face less challenges when navigating the built environment.

While the legal requirements of disabilities legislations are typically met in public spaces like parks, plazas, streets, and gardens, it is often the case that these requirements are a minimum standard for accessibility. Because the spaces are designed to meet criteria on technical aspects of accessibility over experiential quality, it often results in spaces that are still very challenging for people with disabilities to access, leaving them physically and mentally disconnected from public life.

Landscape architects and designers can collaborate to apply universal design principles to create more inclusive spaces for underserved communities. It is also important to collaborate with disabled architects who will have a deeper knowledge of environments designed without consideration for the people with disabilities, and to make the next projects more inclusive. Finally, people with disabilities are often limited in the distances they can travel, and, so, including walkable or wheelchair paths on wide sidewalks will allow those with limited range to manage and maintain many aspects of their lives independently.

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