UD2014

Inclusive neighborhood design promotes security and participation. Most elderly residents want to live in their own home as long as possible. However they can face many challenges in their living environment. The goal of this ongoing case study is to promote aging in place by developing the service structure in the neighborhood scale with participation from public, private and third sector service providers. The reachability and accessibility of the environment and the services are assessed with several user driven qualitative methods (workshops, walk through method etc.). For the quality of life it is important that the living environment offers places for social contacts and inclusion. The universal design promotes diversity and equal opportunity to access the premises and the services.

This paper overviews Volda University College’s implementation of Universal Design in its Bachelor’s study program in planning and administration, and Master’s study program in social planning and management. It includes a four-day introduction to Universal Design from various complementary perspectives, with a study tour and a separate compendium.

Mainstreaming universal design is a cross-sector and cross-disciplines exercise. GAATES has identified barriers and strategies as well as stakeholders for including universal design and accessibility and universal design in policy making for a Post-2015 development agenda.

From the Universal Design’s point of view, effective public seating in airports should accord with equitable use and flexibility, cater to different sizes of passenger groups and provide size and space for easy access and use.

This study examines the departure lobby in Terminal 1 of Taoyuan International Airport and compares the pod-shaped seating of social centrifugal design and the Y-shaped seating of social centripetal design. Through unobtrusive observation, we recorded the number of groups, luggage, passengers’ postures and behaviors in both seating. Using behavioral linguistics to explain the significance of postures and behaviors to understand what seating passengers in international airport need.

The results of the study showed that often one to two people occupy pod-shaped seating and they tend to rest for a longer period of time. Behavior wise, the occupying passengers sleep or gaze more, they are also in more relaxed postures, such as stretching out their legs and reclining on the chair. The passengers in this kind of area mainly use handheld luggage, which are often placed on the seats or on their suitcases. On the contrary, the Y-shaped seating are often occupied by two or more passengers for a shorter period of time. As it is used more often, passengers tend to be in nervous postures, such as leaning forward and closing their legs. As more luggage carts and backpack are placed around Y-shaped seating and the lack of back rests, passengers will place their backpacks behind them to adjust the space between them and the others. The two seating have their pros and cons, if Y-shaped seating can add backrests and the pod-shaped seating can increase the amount of clusters, passengers will have a more pleasant experience using the airport’s public seating.

Founded in the understanding that walking is probably the best sustainable mode of transport for short distance trips in urban areas, the Norwegian Ministry of Transport in its guidelines for the National Transport Plan for 2014 -2023 authorised The Norwegian Public Road Administration (NPRA) to develop a national strategy for pedestrians or walking. The result has been the so called National Walking strategy for Norway. Universal design is a key tool in this strategy.

The paper examines how the streets’ infrastructure of X city, in Lithuania, and the legacy of a former dependency to the Soviet Union determine ‘no go’ areas in the city and shape the ‘map’ of the private market, inhabited by people with vision impairments and blind people.

Disorientation is one of the main consequences of dementia, making independence more difficult for elder people outdoor. Traditional navigation systems use directional information based on distances and maps, what is known as ‘allocentric navigation’. However, these systems miss different navigation strategies, i.e., landmarks and Points of Interest (PoI) information-based that are included in T&Tnet system.

Most elderly people want to live at home as long as possible. In an ageing world this is both a possibility and a challenge. In this study, we present the results of a survey study on people aged 75 to 80 and argue that accessibility is the key factor in enabling living at home in the old age. Technology can support daily living, but only if it is user friendly, reliable and sufficient support is available. We emphasize that even though relatives and loved ones are an important resource, technological solutions should be designed so that they are easy to use.

This short paper presents universal design studio conducted for multidisciplinary design students at National Institute of Design, Ahmadabad, India. The studio was conducted by School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, under an overall theme of inclusive design for elderly.

In India geriatrics is in its incipient stage, care, welfare and concerns by the state for elderly are almost nonexistent. Also the Persons with Disability Act-1995 lack a separate mention for elderly. The current study attempts to develop a set of architectural design guidelines to create inclusive enabling environments for Indian elderly. The overall aim of the present paper is to understand the situations of Indian elderly and to generate design parameters which when followed will create enabling environment for the Indian elderly.
To begin with an extensive literature review is done to understand aging, associated problems and the International concepts. Then a field survey is performed to identify the challenges elderly face in activities of daily living (ADLs) in Indian context. The survey is done for the upcoming urban housing typologies in India. These upcoming typologies are identified with market survey and scientific layering of the data. Then 27 elderly in the age group of 60 to 85 years representing independent elderly, frail elderly, and dependent elderly are studied using different environment-behaviour research tools, living in joint and nuclear families, in identified housing typologies. The collected data from interview questionnaires, audios, traces and photographs, is analyzed in layers to identify 26 environmental issues. Based on these identified issues, analysis and synthesis is done to identify the possibilities of interventions at architecture design level, to create Inclusive enabling environments for Indian elderly.