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By Barbara Knecht

New York City, working with IDEA, developed a handbook (www.ap.buffalo.edu/IDEA/publications/publications.html) illustrated with specific examples. The City of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities advocates for universal design through education and outreach and by sponsoring two competitions (www.cityofchicago.org/Disabilities/). Internationally, London Mayor Ken Livingstone published Accessible London: Achieving an Inclusive Environment (www.london.gov.uk/mayor/strategies/sds/spg_accessible_london/accessible_london.pdf), an exhaustive plan that will require all development proposals to include a statement showing how they have incorporated the principles of universal design.

 

Yellow “tac dots” (above) guide visitors inside the terminal. A bright yellow rail (below) provides instructions in braille and photosensors to trigger audio information. Photography: © Coco Raynes Associates

Raynes, Payette, and Johansson are all 2003 recipients of awards from the first competition for universal design sponsored by Adaptive Environments (www.adaptiveenvironments.org), an international advocacy organization that is actively promoting universal design through education, technical assistance, and conferences. “Our goal is to draw attention to the principles of universal design in order to influence the performance of design for a wide range of users,” explained Valerie Fletcher, the executive director. “This sort of thing can’t be legislated. Design is influenced by trends that have nothing to do with laws. We want to draw attention to excellence and beauty in universal design and let that lead to shifts in design. It was important to us to limit our competition to built projects in order to showcase existing models.”

Architects have practiced “sustainable” and “universal” design since long before they became Sustainable Design and Universal Design. Energy efficiency and accessibility have made their way into the codes. There will always be architects who doggedly meet the minimum prescribed standards, but the best examples of both will continue to come from those who embrace the concepts, push the technology, and use them as a platform for invention.