24 Hour Universal Design Challenge

anto1n3tt3 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:59:50 +0000

The 24‐hour Universal Design Challenge was a competitive design event run by TrinityHaus (www.trinityhaus.tcd.ie) and the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (www.universaldesign.ie), in association with the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre, from 6-7 November 2009 in Dublin as part of IDI Design Week. Queen’s University Belfast (www.qub.ac.uk) represented the UD-BUS network and conducted an observational study of the design event, focussing on the interaction and communication between designers and design partners (users).

The Challenge as a whole aimed to highlight the key role that design partners who represent particular challenges to designers can play in the design innovation process and to demonstrate a collaborative mechanism through which this can take place in commercial and public sector design practice. The design partners were diverse, representing a range of ages, and included a person of short stature, two people with vision impairments, one person with cerebral palsy who is also a wheelchair user, and an 85 year old rock climber! A major purpose of the Challenge was for designers to spend time with their design partners; not to design something specifically for their design partners but rather to use their experiences (both positive and negative) as a source of inspiration for accessible, usable, inclusive, desirable designs.

From the point of view of the competing design professionals we hoped for them to gain a clearer understanding of Universal Design, to experience working alongside a design partner who presented significant challenges with regard to age, size or disability, and to experience working on a team with designers from a diverse range of disciplines. While at the same time, we hoped the design partners (members of the community) would be empowered to challenge existing designs that do not meet their needs, to gain experience in communicating effectively with designers, and to accept that their active contribution really does make a difference to the development of innovative, exciting and inclusive design solutions.

Subjectively, the feedback from the designers and design partners was overwhelmingly positive. More objectively, the observational study performed by Dr Yasemin Afacan, Prof Ruth Morrow and James Brown of Queen’s University Belfast will provide some interest insights into how successfully the aims of the event were met. For further information please contact Dr Antoinette Fennell at antoinette.fennell@tcd.ie

Information on Socially Sustainable Design Symposium sponsored by the Institute for Human Centered Design, Thursday, November 19

buildingclouds — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:24:49 +0000

Institute for Human Centered Design, Boston ran event on Thursday, November 19 held an interesting symposium on 19th Nov 2009 around ideas of Socially Sustainable Design

issues covered included:

Better public buildings: green and inclusive design
Inclusion, equity and leadership
Centers of community – expanded roles for schools
Cultural facilities: design that welcomes everyone
Historic, green and universal

Welcome

buildingclouds — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:25:24 +0000

Welcome to the UD-BUS – a Network concerned with Urban Design, Universal Design and Older People.

The project partners are: TrinityHaus, Queen’s University Belfast (Architecture in SPACE), the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD) and PLACE (Northern Ireland’s Centre for Architecture and the Built Environment), and is part-funded by CARDI (Centre for Aging Research and Development in Ireland).