Universal Design Patterns for enabling physical environments

Abstract

This piece approaches the general theme of physical spaces for “integral & inclusive education for all” from an architecture-theoretical point of view. The piece outlines a conceptual framework that is nurtured and coloured by the symbiosis of personal experience of permanent physical dis-ability (sic), plus in-depth academic Teaching & Research relative to A Methodological Approach to the New Design Paradigm of Universal Design (Froyen, 2012). Emphasis is placed on human-made physical environments and objects, and more specifically on the question of how these can be systematically made more enabling and sustaining for the wide variety of abilities and disabilities of users.

Over recent decades, there has been a gradual paradigm shift surrounding the understanding of human functioning and factors leading to functional difficulties. On the threshold of the 21st century, in 2001, the World Health Organization published the groundbreaking “International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health” (WHO, 2001). For the first time, in addition to human functioning and functional problems, external environmental and personal factors were also considered. This broadens the focus from a human-related disability to possible disabling misfits in the Human - Environment interface.

Decision makers and designers now adopt the Social model / Cultural model with a special role they have to play in the creation of enabling objects and enabling physical environments. Integral and inclusive design processes go beyond the needs of the stigmatised group of people with permanent health-related impairments, they adopt an integral and inclusive “Design for All” approach.