Universal Design and Visitability: From Accessibility to Zoning Preliminary Conference Program

Thursday July 13, 2006

7:00 – 7:30 am Registration and Coffee and Pastries: Open Space

7:30 – 8:45 am Plenary Session: Room 195

Lafferty, Steve (Planning and Zoning, Howard County Maryland). "As your county gets older. . ." Planning for senior needs.

Howard County, Maryland is located between Washington, DC an Baltimore. And, while its median age is less than 35 years old, it is predicted that 31% of the population will be over the age of 55 in the next 25 years. This shift has begun and is having a significant impact on the County’s housing stock. These changes caused the County to take a new look at the needs for and the provision of housing for older residents. The result was a Senior Housing Master Plan, completed in late 2004. Working with an Advisory Group of residents, developers, and advocates, County officials crafted a report and set of recommendations to create more units, to assist older residents as they age in place and to address the growing need for affordable units. Two key concepts wove throughout the discussion and thinking about senior housing – access to needed services and the principles of universal design. This session describes the issues, recommendations and status of efforts to provide more affordable senior housing in the County.

Transcript of Steve Lafferty

Powerpoint: Steve Lafferty

8:45 – 9:00 am Break

9:00 -10:15 a.m. Plenary Session: Open Space

Cohen, Regina (Associate Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Research and teaching of accessibility and universal design in Brazil: Hindrances and challenges in a developing country.

This paper deals with accessibility and universal design situations in Brazil. Most Brazilian cities have physical barriers that restrict circulation of people. Although eliminating these barriers can increase opportunities for every citizen, we must also eliminate attitudinal barriers, which because of their invisibility may be harder to fix. Until recently, Brazil has lacked information and awareness about the importance of these issues to urban planning and public policies. Architects, engineers, urban planners, professionals, technicians and the public share responsibility. Facing the challenge of improving access to urban space, the architects Regina Cohen and Cristiane Duarte (authors of this paper) created the Núcleo Pro-acesso (Accessibility Research Bureau, ARB) in 1999, linking it to a line of research in the Post-graduate Studies Program in Architecture (PROARQ) in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Through targeting design professionals, ARB research – coordinated by these professors – has produced reports aimed at create more accessible spaces for everyone. This session discusses our educational experiences, research projects, and the Brazilian reality. The undergraduate curriculum tries to stimulate knowledge, through dynamic methods covering theory, simulation and intense design activity to motivate students to consider human diversity, accessibility, and the “Other” as key design concerns. The Post-graduate curriculum adds evaluation techniques and analyses for accessibility and universal design. The results have spread through the city. The ‘new minds’ shaped by our program targets the effective change in a developing country, such as Brazil. Huge challenges require daring action, such as ours.

Transcript of Regina Cohen

10:15 -10:30 Break

10:45 – Noon Breakout Sessions

2:45 – 3:00 pm Break

3:00 – 4:15 pm Plenary Session: Knowlton Hall Auditorium Room 250

Hunter-Zaworski, Katherine (Director, National Center for Accessible Transportation, Corvallis, OR) Universal design in public transportation: Segway to the future.

Accessible transportation is essential for people with disabilities to access education and employment, and to live independently. Accessible transportation is a fundamental human right and this is embodied in U.S. Federal Civil Rights Legislation, namely the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The fundamental challenge in the planning, design and operation of accessible transportation services is the accommodation of the very large spectrum of human abilities. This paper will present an overview of some of the precepts of universal design as they are applied to accessible transportation. Translink is Vancouver BC’s accessible multi-modal transit system and is used to illustrate a number of aspects of Universal Design in Accessible Transportation.

Transcript of KatherineHunter-Zaworski

Powerpoint: Katherine Hunter-Zaworski

4:15 – 5:00 pm Reception and Gallery Tour: Knowlton Hall Gallery

5:00– 6:15 pm Tour of the Knowlton School of Architecture & the RPAC (Recreation and Physical Activity Center) : Tour Meet at the main entrance to Knowlton Hall.

Plenary Session: Knowlton Hall Auditorium Room 250

Morton Keston Summit 2006: The Role of Design Professionals Eleanor Smith (Concrete Change, Atlanta, GA) and Roberta Null (Common Place Design, Whittier, CA), D'Auray, Mary Lou (CID), and Sullivan,Sylvia. Moderator: Jon Pynoos.

Friday, July 14, 2006

7:30 – 8:00 am Coffee and Pastries: Open Space

8:00 – 9:15 am Plenary Session: Open Space

Duncan, Dick (Senior Project Manager, Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University). Universal Homes and Communities.

This presentation responds to the growing need for information about changing customer, and home and neighborhood design issues in the 21st Century. The altered demographics of America have produced a growing need for homes and communities that better support average people’s typical activities and are more accommodating when our abilities change as well. It is insufficient for the occasional home to have useful features; we need whole neighborhoods full of better homes, and neighborhoods designed for lifespan utility if we want to maintain households’ community integration over time. This session will use examples to review home and community features that work well for all of us, and a few that don't. The session will touch on the opportunities and impediments offered by neo-traditional, mixed use and new urbanist models. This session will raise the awareness of participants in the basics of universal home design features and the positive impact of livable and universal communities.

Transcript of Dick Duncan

Powerpoint: Dick Duncan

9:15 – 9:30 am Break

9:30 – 10:45 am Breakout Sessions

• Universal Design and Accessibility: Room 175

• Osterberg, Arvid (Iowa State University, Ames, IA). Employing preferred standards based on common sense and universal design principles.

Powerpoint: Arvid Osterberg

• Park, Sohyun (Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ). Accessing nature as ecological public places: Perspectives of planning the nature environmental facility in South Korea.

Powerpoint: Sohyun Park

• Sawadsri, Antika (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle, UK). A universal design guideline to accommodate wheelchair occupants.

Powerpoint: Antika Sawadsri

• Policy for Universal Design Visitability: Audits and Research for Accessibility: Room 176

• Rashtian, Shohreh (University of California, Los Angeles, CA) Architecture and spatial cognition without sight.

Powerpoint: Shohreh Rashtian

• Stoddard, Susan (InfoUse, Larkspur, CA). Using disability statistics in local decision making.

Powerpoint: Susan Stoddard

• Null, Roberta (Common Place Design, Whittier, CA); Potthoff, Joy (Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH); and Teaford, Margaret (The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH). Symposium: Educating designers and design educators about universal design.

Powerpoint: Null, Potthoff, Teaford

Transcript of the Education Session

10:45 -11:00 am Break

11:00– 12:30 pm Lunch and Plenary: Open Space

Bringa, Olav (Consultant to the Norwegian Government and Project Manager for Norwegian national action plans for accessibility and universal design). Making universal design work in zoning and regional planning: A Scandinavian approach.

Universal design may turn out to be the most innovative and significant development to reach the planning sphere in the past several decades. The strategy of universal design presents a holistic approach to how to deal with the interaction between humans and the environment. The core of this thinking revolves around the important issue of accessibility for people with reduced functionality based on equal opportunities and equal rights.
The Norwegian Government is currently in the process of integrating universal design perspectives into various aspects of national planning policy. This is a direct result of advances achieved through preliminary policy development and pilot projects over the last years. County and municipal plans comprise the main targets for the new initiatives, which address a number of issues in strategic planning and zoning. The process of integrating universal design into planning policy includes revising the Planning Act, expanding government impact assessment regulations, developing and issuing national policy guidelines and raising the overall levels of professional competence.
This process brings to light new issues which need be discussed and clarified. What is the relationship between universal design, sustainable development, landscape development and protection of the cultural heritage? Are the universal design principles consistent with the full scope of the definition of the concept?

Transcript of Olav Bringa

Powerpoint: Olav Bringa

12:30 -12:45 pm Break

12:45– 2:15 pm Poster Session: Gui Gallery

• Burnham, Katelyn (Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH). ADA incompliance in today’s built environments.
• Corry, Shauna (University of Idaho, Moscow, ID) A universal design course: Changing the ’Us’ vs. ‘Them’ attitude with community involvement.
• Elkola, Nermin; Morita, Yoshitsugu; and Hirai, Yasuyuki (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan). Understanding of the concept of universal design among overseas and Japanese institutions and manufacturers. Copy of Nermin Elkola's paper Powerpoint: Nermin Elkola
• Hansler, Steven (Maximum Independent Living, Cleveland, OH). Practical and affordable approaches to universal and accessible design in housing. Powerpoint: Steve Hansler
• Hartje, Sandra (Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA). Who says it’s universal? A local case study supports developing residential standards for universally designed housing.
• Price, Darrell (Access Living, Chicago, IL). Federal visitability: The inclusive home design act.
• Rossetti, Rosemarie (Rossetti Enterprises, Columbus, OH ). Unveiling a national model home: The universal design living laboratory.
• Sanderson, Margaret (University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario). Accessibility planning for persons with disabilities in mid-size Canadian municipalities. Powerpoint: Margaret Sanderson
• Smith, Korydon (University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR). Codes and ideology in housing design: A context for universal design. Image1 Image2 Image3

2:15 – 3:30 pm Plenary Session, Discussion, and Conference Closing: Knowlton Hall Auditorium Room 250

Preiser, Wolfgang (Professor of Architecture and Interior Design, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH). Universal design paradigm for the 21st Century.

Universal design is about the power of lifting the human spirit beyond the minimum requirements the American with Disabilities Act has legislated. In order to ascertain the viability of the Seven Principles of Universal Design (Preiser and Ostroff, 2001), it will be necessary to develop objective and explicit performance criteria, which can be aligned with the traditional 3 levels of priorities, including: 1. health, safety, security; 2. function, efficiency, work processes; and 3., social, psychological, cultural performance (Preiser, 2003). These can be related directly to control mechanisms common in planning, such as building codes, the life safety code, zoning regulations, design review, tax incentives and guidance, which has emanated from environment/behavior research over the past 35 years. Due to the paucity of systematic, universal design evaluation research (Preiser, 2001), the author proposes to scrutinize case study examples at the planning and urban scale. The underlying theoretical framework is feedback based and aiming at continuous quality improvements. This is in the expectation that universally designed environments will facilitate their use by a vast majority of people. Some recommendations will be made for future explorations into the application of universal design at the urban scale, and to the field of planning in general.

Transcript of Wolfgang Preiser

Powerpoint of Wolfgang Preiser

Information

For more information, contact Jennifer Evans-Cowley at (614) 247-7479 or by e-mail at ped@knowlton.osu.edu

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