UD2014

Slide 1

Hallo everyone

I am very glad to share the experiences from our Norwegian project the National Development Project for Universal Design in Counties and Municipalities with you.

My name is Einar Lund, senior adviser in the Department of Planning in the Norvegian ministry with the resposibility for the planning and building policy and legislation in Norway.

I am working with policy, strategies and actions connected to the national policy for universal design.

In my paper and in this presentation I will deal with the headline «Universal design as a strategy for local and regional authorities», the connections to the project «National development project for universal design» and in general, to the Norvegian policy for universal design and the Norwegian government `s «Action plan for universal design and increased accessibility 2009- 2013».

The project was a central measure in the Government `s action plan for universal design and increased accessibility, 2009- 2013.The aim was to realize the national policy for universal design as a strategy for promoting an inclusive society. The project was organized as a network- project led by the Ministry; with local foundation in the municipalities, user – focus in all stages, and sharing of best- practice among the participating municipalities and counties.

I will not focus specially on the consept and stategy of universal design, as I in this audience, regard as well known topics.

The central reports concerning to our work, are available as copies at the conference. Please take some with you if you are interested.

Slide 2 Norwegian policy for universal design – I

Universal design
– Equality
– an approach for planning and design of products and environment
– inclusive society
– participation for all

Universal design was introduced as a planning concept in Norway in 1997, and has since become widely recognised and applied in Norwegian political documents, laws and technical guidelines.

Universal design have more and more replaced accessibility for disabilty persons – which had been a part of technical regulations and guides according to the planning and building act back to 1975.

To day we use universal design as definition of strategy and as a concept for the wide scope of solutons for persons with decreased operability, while accessibilty is connectet to specfied technical measures.

Universal design for us is a strategic approach for planning and design of products and environment in a way that promotes an inclusive society. It is also a strategy for full equality and participation for all, and we regard it as relevant for all areas of society.

Universal design promote diversity. It enables detailed specifications of qualities in products and environments so that they may be accessible to all on equal terms.

We worked out a definition and clarified some aspects of universal design in 2007. It established a common basis for application of the strategy in public documents.

(The report T-1468 Universal design – clarification of the consept. The Norwegian Ministry of the Environment, 2007)

The definition is very much similar with the content in the UN Convention on the Rights for the disabled (UN 2006). They were embodied in the Norwegian policy first in 2009 and ratified by our parliament in 2013.

Slide 3 National policy for universal design – II

– Sustainability
– Better and more equally accessible surroundings for all

Our new right-wing government from 2013 has assured in the government platform that the work with universal design will continue.

The politics of universal design express a value put on equality by society that is positive for all citizens. It contributes to social and economic sustainability and is therefore part of the national sustainability strategy.

It is an important principle in the government’s strategy that the primary solution for all new procurements, buildings and facilities intended for the general public is to be universally designed.

Regional and municipal master plans are also to be based on the principles of universal design. This is assured through legislation and guidelines and the efficient follow-up of these.
 
Slide 4.

Key legislations :
– The Planning and Building Act
– The Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act

The relevant legislative acts that enforce universal design are the Anti- Discrimination and Accessibility Act and the Planning and Building Act, both in 2009.

The main purpose of the first one, is to strengthen the legal protection of disabled person from discrimination and to hinder discrimination resulting from poor accessibility.

The principle of Universal design are incorporated into the purpose and a number of provisions of the Planning and Building Act.

This act will contribute to increase the number of universal designed buildings for workplaces and public buildings, houses, facilities and outdoor areas.

 

Slide 5 New strong efforts 2009 – 2013

– Norway universally designed by 2025
– The Norwegian government `s action plan for universal design and increased accessibility 2009- 2013

The action plan should support the implementation of the Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act and the Planning and Building Act, trough cross-sectional and sectional measures.

The sector responsibility principle is a necessary and fundamental strategy for achieving the main goals of the policy concerning people with disabilities.

But – in an evaluaton of the action plan we could read this in January 2013 as a comment to practising the sector responsibility principels:

“Without political vision on this field, we cannot observe a natural process within the society contributing to universal design. For
this reason, we consider an action plan to be necessary in achieving political goals.”

(Oslo Economics , in report number 2013- 4 , evaluated the action plan in January 2013)

Many of the measures in the action plan is fulfilled by 2013. A new action plan is expected to be presented by the now-a-days sitting Solberg government soon – we hope among these days and before the summer 2014.

 
Slide 6 The action plan for Universal design and increased accessibility 2009 – 13

– Coordinated by the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social inclusion.
– Nearly all ministries are involved.
– Includes nearly 200 steps on cross-sector areas.

The action plan is sector overarching and the responsibility for co- ordination lies with the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social inclusion.

The action plan for the period 2009-2013 included nearly 200 steps on cross-sector important areas for participation in society and personal development. The action plan gave overall guidelines on the given steps and measures. Few specific activities within the measure was given, and consequently the sector – responsible part of a measure had the liberty to design the activities.

The action plan focus on four areas of commitment with specified goals and measures. These are building and construction, outdoor areas and regional and municipal planning, transportation and ICT.

Specially, municipalities have planning and out-door areas central as their duties. Two important goals in the action plan concerning planning and out-door areas
• all municipals centres in Norway are to be universally designed
• all municipals centers are to have outdoor areas for general use that are universally designed

 
Slide 7 National development project for universal desig in counties and municipalities

• Developing the quality and potential of the municipality center
• Diversity of activities within the project
• Conducted by the Ministry of the Environment 2009- 2013

The Project «National development project for universal design» was conducted by the Department of Planning – at that time in the Ministry of the Environment and is one of the central steps/measures in the action plan.

The project started in 2009 with 13 municipalities (of 424 ) and eight (of 19) counties. In autumn 2013, 88 municipalities and 17 counties had participated in the project.

The project’s aim was to contribute to the realization of the action plan, among others within the areas of increased competence, integration of universal design in the formulation of goals and strategies at the regional/county level and emphasise cross-sector areas such as outdoor life, transportation and local development.

The purpose of the project was to develop universal design as a strategy in local authority and regional planning and administration. The measure included that local authorities can act as a resource, as pilot county councils and new pilot local authorities.

Municipalities and counties formulated a joint national project description containing primary goals in co- operation with the ministry. Within the framework of the primary goals, the municipalities and counties formulated their own project plans. They also made commitments to produce documentation and convey the results and the processes behind the results.

The participating counties and municipalities employed the Plan and Building Act as a tool to put the strategy of universal design into effect in addition to other actions permitted by their authority.

The strategy was included at all stages in the planning processes: Master plan, societal plan, area usage, zone plan, architecture, and more.

Participating municipalities and counties introduced and investigated universal design as a strategy at the municipal and county level to promote improved solutions at these areas.

 
Slide 8
Universal design is based on
– Cross- disciplinary planning
– Attention to aesthetics perspectives
– User involvement
– Contribution in democratic decision-making

Universal design is not a simple standard that can be achieved in all circumstances. The strategy requires interdisciplinary co-operation, good inclusion processes, dialogue with users and the will and ability to invent new solutions.

None can claim ownership over knowledge of universal design alone.

The work is cross-sectorial in nature and also includes co-operation across administrative levels such as public health, transportation , education, cultural heritage etc.

The merit of universal design solutions is to be assessed in an overall context. The universal design shall be incorporated as an integral part of cohesive design activity.

Universal design is concerned with the daily lives of human beings, which means that those who are affected must be included in the processes.

Early involvement from councils for people with disabilities, user organisations and senior- and youth councils contribute to the quality of the end result.
 
Slide 9

After four years of investigating end sharing of experience we all – both ministry and municipalities and counties – have learned something about:

• Inclusive processes
• The user in focus at all stages
• Inspire by examples
• Contribution to national politics

Our experience are presented in this report from October 2013, and are important contributions to push the work with universal design up to the national level.

Experience is accumulated through projects that deal with inclusion processes, innovative solutions and the journey from plan to finished product. They emphasize that universal design:

– demands coherent planning, cooperation and dialogue
– with users
– with sector disciplines and professions
– provides challenging opportunities to create good pilot-projects.
– contributes to inclusion and to bring people together
– is necessary for some and good for all
– contributes to increased quality

One of the county majors said – as an example of this – in a speech on one of our conferences in June 2013:
Better functionality is of benefit to all, not only to persons with disabilities. Social inclusion and belonging earns respect and prevent stigmatisation. We still have a long way to go before we are where we want to be, but trough clear legislation the framework has become plain. We must not believe that things happen by themselves however.

Systematic reporting of achievements in the project has shown to instil a sense of commitment to the project and should be considered a success in the transfer of experience for the development project. The reporting can be improved by setting clear goals ties to tasks within the project.

slide 13

The municipalities Porsgrunn, Kristiansand and Stavanger has participated in the project and chosen different ways of implementing universal design.

One condition for success is that universal design is politically and administratively anchored in overarching plans. In the planning processes one must keep a consistent perspective on the theme and it must be followed up all the way to the final result.

One good strategy is to start with actions that give visible results. By transferring experience from one project through another through good internal procedures, the municipalities and counties achieve a continual increased of competence in the area.

(The project was evaluated by Oslo economics in January 2013 :
The report concluded that The effects of the measures will apply in the long run, and it is too early to determine these effects today.

Successful results is achieved when design of measures have taken place in broad processes . We also find that a broad process in designing measures seems to ensure that the target group’s needs are being met, as well as contribute positively to the marketing of the measure

In our opinion, broad processes for design of measures have led to a more complete design. In a complete design, the target group should be consulted. In general, we find that measures which are implemented and designed according in line with the action plan have a high quality.

In the view of the coordinator, the project has been organized counties’ terms. That the counties have partially been allowed/tasked with drafting the content on events and conventions have been especially emphasized as positive in the interviews. )

slide 14

Identity and participation

Porsgrunn is a county borough located in the south of Telemark County and has 35,000 inhabitants. A well known feature of Porsgrunn is the River Porsgrunn, which winds through the town dividing east from west.

Porsgrunn municipality’s goal is to create attractive physical surroundings with long-lasting qualities in which environmentally friendly solutions, innovative architecture and universal design play an important role.

The city-renewal project Nordentorget was completed in the spring of 2010. Universal design was integrated in both the planning process, project and construction. The city square has a solid, smooth surface with step-less access to stores and restaurant. The seats have suitable height and the square has natural guiding lines to aid the visually impaired.

A group of creative youths has given new life to old benches in Porsgrunn as seen here at Østre Brygge/Wharf (through) a project centering on reuse, city development, hiking trails, universal design and social meeting places. The project was carried out in cooperation with the city’s schools. The benches invites people to sit down and spend some time by the river. For some, the option to sit down and rest on the way can be a decisive motivational factor to go outside and meet others. The keywords for the students were therefore robustness, user-friendliness, accessibility, local identity and environment. This way, the students also learned about city and local development.

Slide 15

Universal design is not seen, it is felt. The photo shows “Rådhusplassen” – amphitheater in front of the Town hall. The amphitheater is used to out-door concert, and is a popular public place.

We can see Integrated ramp-access in the amphitheater
Marking of steps.
Warning-zone at the top and bottom of ramps and stairs decorated by an illustration of the plant “Pors”.
The same decoration is found on the Town Hall. In addition to serve as a warning-zone and tactile decoration, it point out Porsgrunn`s identity as a shipping-city. The seeds of the plant Pors came from ports far away by the way of ships, and also gave the city its name.

Induction loop (for the hearing impaired)
Cable-heated streets
Guiding lines in the Main street

Slide 16

Universal design is integrated in the city plan

Porsgrunn municipality has focused heavily on universal design over the past 15 years, and has integrated universal design requirements into its plans from a general level all the way down to the detailed planning work

The map shows:
Comprehensive system for guiding lines (natural and artificial)
Clear markings on open spaces
Free space in walking areas/ Unobstructed walking area
The streets divided into zones with separated furnishing
Reinforced sidewalks with avenues of trees and illumination
Improve(d) information and signboards

slide 17
Tangen , Kristiansand
Kristiansand is the centre of Norway’s southern region and has just over 80,000 inhabitants.
Kristiansand municipality started its universal design work in the early 1970s, when the first adaptation measures were implemented in the outdoor areas close to the city. The municipality cooperates well with the Council for People with Disabilities. Each sector is responsible for universal design in its area. Universal design is an integral part of the municipality’s management tools – in the municipal master plan, zoning plans and local norms and standards.
The city centre has been well arranged for easy access and is to the benefit of all who travel here.
Tangen is an area located centrally in the town, with the river Otra to the east and the sea to the south and west.
The Zone area consist of total 130.000 m2 BRA:
70.000 m2 square meters houses, dwellings
40.000 m2 business and industry
20.000 m2schools
Public green areas
Public transportation areas

Universal design has from the beginning been a central perspective in the planning process.

Slide 18.
The construction of the public infra structure started in 2007, and was ready in 2011. The public area with the park and the city beach has been in common use since 2011, and is popular amongst the citizens and in 2013 The City Beach nearby the swimming pool and hotel vas rebuilt.

With the new promenade, the beach is easily accessible. New, long stairs are built down to the sea together with a universally designed access-ramp. In the transition between promenade and ramp, stones will be used as notice that can be felt as well as seen.

Slide 19
Tangen, the new city district in Kristiansand. The research project “Economic effects of universal design” (2007) carried out by the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research ,NIBR and Byggforsk show that the added costs of universal design to new apartments are small, while the construction of such residential areas has a net positive economic effect.
The out- door areas are without steps. Double guiding lines mark the walking-zone on the largest open square. Guiding lines are of great help to the visually impaired.

Slide 20
• Universal design is the primary principle in the design manual
• User focus and cooperation with the Council for People with Disabilities

The Kristiansand municipality has invited scholars and professions in several disciplines to participate in the development of a new residential district – the district of the future.
Wheelchair users tested a number of solutions. One goal among others was to achieve optimal use of materials, for example in guiding lines for the visually impaired.

Pleasing esthetic solutions

Coherent plant for the areas as a whole

Tools for every developer to adapt their projects to the public space

slide 21
Inclusion of universal design in the details is of critical importance for the end result

Solutions within every area of planning should be developed in a way that accommodate all users. The municipality of Kristiansand and the construction industry have been well prepared for the new technical regulation and demands in the Planning and Building Act because of the work that have been done and the focus that has been on universal design in the past several years.

The details of the plans has been prepared in close cooperation with the Council for People with Disabilities. The Council has also hosted seminars for the project team, and has been sent out in the city armed/equipped with wheelchairs and canes for the visually impaired.

slide 22
Universal design and sustainable development

Stavanger has got a step further in implementation the strategy by preparing a municipal sub-plan of universal design .

Stavanger is a city west in Norway, 130 000 inhabitants. Stavanger is the most densely populated municipality in Norway.

Stavanger will with the municipal sub-plan of universal design
work to achieve a universally designed and inclusive society, and expects that the project will give positive results in terms of both economics and wellbeing. This because the society at large becomes more accommodating so that citizens can master their own situation and participate actively in their society.

Strategies or steps that are expected to have negative samfunnsøkonomiske consequences should not be carried out.

(Universal design is a tool for inclusion. The tools enables inclusion of all citizens and gives them the opportunity to participate in society at their own terms by adapting the environment to the user’s needs. Implementing universal design must concern itself as much with the inhabitance of the municipality as with buildings, the public spaces and IT solutions.)

slide 23
The objective of the plan is
– to secure a purposeful and binding process
– that will make Stavanger accessible for all

The main emphasis of the strategies is to achieve the goal of A good city to live in.

Urban and city Concentration with quality.
User friendliness is an important criterion for urban development and concentration. Universal design is also an important quality criterion for concentration of the city’s populace. Quality in this regard is about meeting expectations, and that means that the resulting population concentration must be in accordance with the needs of the users.

Stavanger shall through systematic action, with the … for universal design as instrument, carry out a gradual and comprehensive accommodation of the city’s public space and functions. In addition, the municipality shall ensure that a significantly larger portion of newly constructed dwellings are universally designed and accessible (as defined in technical regulation TEK 10)

The plan will be binding for all areas for which the municipality carries the responsibility, and action plans shall be prepared. The plan will also serve as the basis for increased awareness campaigns. Stavanger is the first municipality to make a … for universal design with the 2009 revision of the planning and construction act as a starting point.

(The planning work builds on the resolution of the Stavanger city council from 18th January of 2007: “A …. For universal design shall be prepared in accordance with the specifications given in the case?. The plan shall ensure a goal-oriented, binding and anchored action-plan to make Stavanger accessible to all.” Stavanger is the first municipality to make a … for universal design with the 2009 revision of the planning and construction act as a starting point. )

The Action plan for universal design in downtown Stavanger has increased accessibility for all users, with emphasis on the visually and physically impaired, as its goal. The action plan focuses on physical steps in the road network so that the principles for universal design are clarified. Many streets and squares will now and in the near future be dug up in connection with replacement of pipelines. This work will have a great impact on the city center for much time to come. In the action plan projected roads have been recommended built as universally design on the background of among other things ascension rates, and costs have been calculated).

slide 24

By acknowledging that people live longer, that there will be more of us and that we are an increasingly compound/complex population, we can prepare and prevent unfavorable social developments. It is important that we prepare our society for these changes in a way that also leaves us with resources that can be directed to the other tasks we must do. Universal design is an important part of these preparations.

Stavanger takes an humorous approach!

slide 25

Thank you for your attention!

>> So for the last presentation of this session is going to talk about elderly opinions on housing. So kind of the same things you were asking about but in and out of context.
>> Can everyone hear me? Good afternoon everyone. I come from the welfare of the aging. I’m going to give you an overview of the study related to elderly people’s opinion on housing at the moment.
When we started to plan this research and made the decision to do this research, what we really wanted to know is how the elderly wanted to live. The population in Finland like everywhere else is aging rapidly. It’s been estimated that 26 percent of people are over 60 years. So we need more housing so that the elderly can live independently or have assistance with the help of care services or other services.
They also have to have a choice, choices to make to choose what kind of houses or apartments they want to live. The study speaks of Finland and includes information from people who are that’s why we wanted to ask the elderly, what kind of needs and expectations they have.
Here is an example of the survey. This survey was carried out in collaboration. This is a bereaveuation and it means user standard technology. This means well, we have noticed that the name is very long and if you hear it once, you might remember it. It’s good for us to have that kind of abbreviation. KAKATE is for the services and it’s an association. So this means, this is with the construction and real estate.
So the research was carried out. Today it was connected by using a sample survey and a sample was drawn from the population. It represents the entire population which includes about 268 thousand people.
This research, we are 401. This was done by constructive telephone interviews in August of 2012. These interviews were carried out by a global company that works for the cause. It’s important to note that the sample represents the healthy older people who are still at home. They are able to answer the phone and they don’t have any significant memory disorders but they are able to do that.
The main findings indicate the satisfaction of the elderly, are in general, very satisfied with their housing at the moment. They don’t see any serious problems, however, the respondents have some preferences on how to improve the housing. I hope you are able to read the text. Here, you can see what the elderly responded when they were asked what is the most problematic factors in their current environment.
The main obstacle is the long distance for basic services. Today this is one of the most important things when older people decide what kinds of needs they have. Also due to high housing costs, are quite problematic for many people, for 18 percent. This may make people to get a new apartment or house.
It’s interesting that inaccessibility of the apartment or house is a problem only for nine percent of the respondent dents. This result may indicate that the dwellings really are very access proof or or correspondents are very healthy so they don’t have to think about inaccessibility.
However, almost 40 percent say they don’t have any problems, at the moment. Here are the important factors of the buildings and surroundings. As you can see, the age distribution here is from 55 to 80 years old. To collect the data, it was also used in other reasons so we can now make comparisons due to age groups even with our special interests.
Many factors seem to become more important in old ages. For example, accessibility, space where mobility and age as well as assistive devices are there. It is interesting that this is more important to the older group than the younger one. And as you can see here, 93 percent of the older age group agree that accessibility is key.
Maybe that indicates that there’s safeties, however, we asked for the correspondents if they were willing to pay for the services.
These are the technologies that many people already pay for. Instead, computer related services or automation are not used so many of them have to pay for those. The most likely explanation of these results is that we ask this question because some technological devices are there in Finland and used, however, in many cases, devices cannot be provided by the municipality and that’s why people who want to get them, they have to buy technology themselves or they will not have them.
A percentage of the elderly move from their own home. That’s not a big surprise. It’s 84 percent of the respondents that think that. And less than half of them will move to one assistive living building or some other place.
Again, so this indicates that the satisfaction of the housing plays. We wanted to know about elderly’s people confidence in getting help and the purpose is that elderly, many of them will need help from their own use. This is also problematic. Speaking on technology, for example, using an introduction, even if they live far away or are not able to help for other reasons.
The respondents of our study are getting help but only half of our responsibilities are confident in getting help from the society. That is a pricing result. Our process of carrying out a new survey and getting help through this, we think it’s an important topic and want to know more about it. So that’s why the survey is published by the end of this year.
In general, they already said they are very happy with the current housing and this indicates they also want to live longer and accessibility is seen as the most important factor but it also means a challenge of innovation. Any buildings and houses are quite old so we have to see what is more accessible. They are also interested in getting and using supportive technology.
This as said in India, they want to have easy to use technology so we have something with instructions and devices so they can do it themselves. That’s probably the best way. The process of this development program is to guide and support for building and adapting and making buildings more accessible and safe for the elderly.
So the housing quality is identical with the opinions of the elderly. This is an item starting point of improving elderly for the housing. It’s important for others to get information from the final results and, as said in the beginning of the presentation, they were recorded with these results. However, the effects will be seen long term. These results are part of a larger entity and there has been several studies. We have this kind of developmental program and a lot of work done by different organizations of Finland and those together promote the understanding of accessible housing among them. Thank you!
>> Thank you so much. That was also very interesting talk. It’s very interesting to just have diversity of in this class room. Is there a question coming?
>> Two questions. One, the survey was to age 75 and 80. How about your assumption, if the survey was always between 80 and 90 the second question is, in the previous subsequent, how many of them were expecting support? Does that mean support from society in an official way or unofficial way? Social services provided by a community or not.
>> Yeah, if it’s okay, I will answer to the second question first. So the this is very high level and I think this result that only part of the because of the elderly are seen by most of society and the population, if you look at that kind of comment, that older people they are just a class of society and that’s why they have a lower level so something like that.
And the first question is about this age group. So we interviewed only 75 to 80 year old people but of course, it would be interesting to know about more as well. I think it depends on the help condition of the people, if they are getting to live in their own homes. Any other questions?
>> Thank you for the presentation. Have you thought about the degree of the wellness of the agency, as they grow older? Like if they, I mean, depending on the knowledge point of acknowledging the system, would the answer might be different? Have you ever thought about it?
>> Yeah, of course. As I said, these respondents are the healthier ones. They are in their own homes and are able to answer this kind of survey. The situation might be quite different if you would ask people who have some disorders but they are a very difficult group to get a consensus.
>> Okay, thank you! Thank you so much! Yes, please. Give all of the presenters a round of applause. So now there is a break and I hope to see you all 20 minutes past two for the final session in the computer conference. Thank you, everybody!

>> So welcome to this session about designing for generations. There’s going to be four speakers here and here’s the first one, Laura who is going to speak about many generations, community house and accessible housing in Lauttasaari.
>> Thank you. So my name is Laura and I come from the University from the department of architecture but I’m doing my master’s thesis for another University.
Community house is my model basis and it’s a design process that consists of community house that’s accessible and appropriate for all aging groups.
A community house provides to create homes of their own. The project is related to this project in which I’m working as an assistant with the project manager. The service for such project consists of three separate projects in different departments. The project is coordinated by the department of architecture so it’s focusing on the accessibility and reach ability of services in the area from the perspective of the elderly residents. The study is done in collaboration with the department of social services and healthcare and the department of economic developmental and the city of housing. And the project is funded by the broker. In the end of 2011, plus 89.6. The goal of the case study is structure promoting independence. It’s private, public and services a lot of this is a neighborhood with la large population with 18 percent of inhabits being over 65 years old. Okay, so we’re taking a break. This is well connected to the traffic network. This continue us to house the city center. A strong will to defend the uniqueness. Mostly of old houses. The church and the library are very popular meeting places for old friends.
Also, three major super markets are very close to the project site. The idea of the community house is to provide only services that are missing from the area that the residents have to move outside of the development. There are services that are close so you can see the super market is here, here, and here and there’s also going to be a day care center here and there are private facilities in the near by area and the road marked by peach is going to be a pedestrian route to the metro station that the city is going to maintain.
There’s also going to be a route that’s going to go past the site and it’s going to also leave the metro station. The program of the many generations, community house is based on the feedback and done by the residents of Lauttasaari during. There’s two in which the letter is focused to hold from architecture. This list is all that they wanted to have in the many generations community house. The biggest need whenever charged with the residents seems to be a place where the residents could go any time during the day without timetables. The other wishes that are included in the community house, for example, restaurant, caretaker, swimming pool, parking, private home care, benches, joint activities, cafe, living room, entrance, and care.
From the housing, there’s the possibility to living in the same apartments the rest of their lives. The research group also indicated that the city of of Lauttasaari which is one of the best the worse qualities is poor acoustics for installation and it also had to do with the lack of elevators or the poor condition of the property.
And about the design of the project. The basis of the design of the procorrect is inaccessibility, adapt ability and sustainability. It has been designed to be empirical and the construction is placed on good elements and good services inside and outside of the billing. It brings the atmosphere the good building material also creates an awesome indoor.
Here you have a section of the program of the building. The community center is in the first floor of the building. The apartments are situated on top of the functions from the first floor. The main entrance to the common center is from the middle of the building and it’s leading straight to the lavatory and there’s two staircases leading to the apartments on each side of the building.
The main entrance is from the side of the building and this is where the residents of the community center can get in. Straight from the entrance, you can see the inflow from the building. On the right side, there’s a restaurant and behind it, there’s a kitchen. And on the left side you can see the core functions of the building. There’s also a lot of space outside. The yard of the building serves as a common area. On the ground floor, there’s also the caretakers office. Here, it’s in connection to the inflow so the caretaker can process the inflow also.
The caretaker working in the building is responsible for organizing and helping the residents with questions. There’s also a therapy room and this room can be rented out to the outside for private, or a messenger or anyone the resident needs. This can be divided by two in the middle and then there’s the residents in Lauttasaari and the common showers, here in the middle can be used by the residents in the evening.
And then there’s a kitchen and the restaurant and the idea is that the kitchen can also be used as a common kitchen by the residents when the restaurant in here is closed. So there would be lunch during the days and it would serve as a cafe in the mornings or afternoons and in the evening. There’s a small resident cafe. I mark it as a cafe but it’s a space where the residents can create.
In the first floor there is a computer lab and a bigger spot for happenings and there’s also five apartments on the first floor. Here you can see the whole can be divided in two also for small things like that or it can be used as a bigger hall for seeing anything like that and also, access the bathrooms for the first floor and there’s also a small healthcare.
There are 35 apartments. All apartments are accessible or could easily identified as such. Some have two bedrooms or some three bedrooms. All apartments have big balconies. Apartments are designed for everyone and there’s different layouts for the apartments to offer more variety and there’s also some spaces like a laundry room and a drying room and there’s also a small space where the residents can gather and spend their time.
This community space is also designed to bring light and space to the corridors. And there’s also greenhouses for the residents to garden in the winter and have parties and small events. Some of these areas are also communal. There’s some communal areas here and a garden here.
>> Some are the apartments are very small so you can see right in here. These are apartments that can be rendered for care for a shorter period of time or nominally yes.
There’s areas for families here. There’s two here and one here. This apartment has one entrance from the hallway to the main part of the apartment. This role has all of the basic functions of the apartment and can serve as an apartment in here. And in the second floor you have access only from the terrace. It’s still simple access but it’s not the most convenient so you don’t have any necessary apartment. In the next floor there’s the guest room where the relatives and the guests can stay. And there’s also a sauna for the resident with a small charge. There’s a fireplace and kitchen here. You can also see an example of the greenhouse in this picture here. Here, you can see the main entrance. In the middle of the building, it’s marked by a big spot and there’s glass. The entrance is on the same level. The road goes to the right side of the building and goes around to the second apartment entrance there.
On this side, the main entrance is marked by a high glass wall as well. Many of the windows on the ground floor can be open to the park during the summer. Yeah, I’m wrapping it up, yeah.
The main focus of this is the part of the users of the building. It’s to organize different things and it’s the idea that the residents will help each other, more easily and socially in the urban area. The principles of universal design in the apartments and the common spaces and the help of the neighbors will help the lives of the residents. In the end it will be that the residents shape the final functions and add in the building. The community house is a home where the residents can live their whole lives with a safe social network. Thank you!
>> Thank you so much Laura. This is very interesting. I’m sure there will be questions for you in the audience somewhere.
>> Hi, I have a couple of questions. First, thank you very much for your very interesting presentation. I remember is this project going to be built? Do you know?
>> Not actually here, in this stage, it’s not. I’m going to present to the city of Lauttasaari and hopefully it will be good and if the design is good enough. But at the moment, it’s not.
>> And the concept is that the municipality would be the owner of this project or this building?
>> Actually, I haven’t thought of it that much. I think it’s basically the same if it’s a municipality or a private owner. I think it would be private. I don’t know if the municipality has the funds to build this kind of a project but I think the building would work the same even if it were private.
>> Okay, thank you!
>> Well, thank you for the presentation. It was very wonderful! Could you tell us more about this prospect, I mean users and target users of what you had in mind?
>> The potential users of this? I think the potential users of it is all of the people living in Lauttasaari. So my main focus is on elderly but I think it’s open to all persons. I think all of the people in Lauttasaari is needing a community function.
>> Is it the social income, however, is it a low income or the whole range of the people who really want the social network?
>> I would like to think this is open for all the people and it’s not divided for the rich.
>> Then if the house is owned by like a private, you know, I mean, people, it could be like a corporate housing, communal housing type or if it is, you know, owned by the city, it could be like a supportive housing or something like that? Have you ever thought about it?
>> Well, I designed many of these apartments so I was thinking the bigger apartments could be purchased by some high income people and the smaller are meant for the low income person but all of the apartments are thought to be renter apartments.
>> Renter? Okay. Thank you!
>> So are there more questions? Okay. Thank you so much Laura!
>> Thank you, thank you.

>> So now we have them giving a talk as spatial experiences.
>> Yes, and I represent the school of institute of architecture where I’m a researcher and assistant professor in some of the courses in continuing education and basic education. And actually, this is a very small study on how to increase awareness about accessibility and usability among architecture students and one of the reasons for this study and for this is because of the school of architecture in Stockholm declined the offer in which he described in 2004 to participate in a project of increasing accessibility and usability in the education of future and designers. It was at a late moment and therefore, the school of architect could not initiate the project and continue with it.
Now, we have well, although I wasn’t part of this decision I can also say share this opinion that accessibility and usability has to be issues that are included directly from the beginning and integral in the design process.
However, we’re trying to increase the knowledge and promote the cause and this is a continuous education course and it only attracted seven women and one man as participants. And we also wanted to promote accessibility and usability and part of this is due to the fact that Sweden is actually aging. We have about 19 percent of the population are older people age 65 years and older and further more, there is this belief in the architect profession that it’s very much about the extierier appearance however, we are to appear the inside experience of space and since the 1930s, ash teches have more or less claimed the role on the human needs and the design of the building.
So therefore, perhaps we work to, in this new sorry, we have to look at how we are as a representation of the brain. And this is a theory proposed by here and it’s the ecological process, sorry, the theorem, the ecological theory on aging and it’s not just aging per se. It’s more or less it’s quite a good theory to use when you compare the effects of architecture for end users because there is always a balance between when the environmental pressure becomes too high and causes stress reactions by the users.
And so you can see that we rejected the participation and on the other hand, we tried to implement it in studio based training which was connected with the practice oriented and actual building types where people represent different disabilities, participated and tried to increase the awareness.
In this case we also tried to implement some knowledge and some experience from the use of this therapeutic screening scale for nursing homes because in previous courses, we have had a special focus on architecture for aging and the positive outcome of this use of this test instrument was one item that we wanted to test in this course.
So it was the type of research based learning that we were trying to implement. And just to mention some words of the test instrument, there are two questions that are particularly interesting because they are holistic and they refer to the assessment of home likeness in a residential care home and the second question is, an over all assessment of the billing whether it’s a pleasant or unpleasant experience and what we found in the previous is that the answers are quite similar, either whether you’re an architect or presenting other professions like care professions or very particular professions.
Although this sheet are very different, these are the assessments of the 19 different residential care homes in Sweden. What we managed to get out of this, what we could correlate the plan, the configuration of the space with the answers. But returning to the course, it was a course called architecture for all accessibility, inclusion, and usability. And of course, most of the participants had some misunderstanding in architecture, they thought that architecture were all implied or more specific interest in the mechanics of esthetics and architecture.
We also had six, 5 hour long lecture seminars with invited lectures and we developed special assessment protocol with five four type of buildings with six sensory aspects and it was only from one, quite close to the Swedish school system with you were graded from 1 to 5 as a pupil.
And we choose four different building types and of course, the school of architecture which is coined as being the most ugly building in Stockholm and most people are using it as a way of ridiculeizing the architect profession but however, what people don’t know is that the elevated entrance was due to planning because it was supposed to be a metro station underneath and this is the fact that inferences the usability issue in this case.
We also looked at the train station and the campus and the shopping small. However, these inventories visits were executed during autumn so there was no snow at the time. However, when we collected the questionnaires, we could detech it’s very important for experiencing the architecture space, however the others became active. In that sense, the school of architecture caused a high rating of kinetics because you had to go around the building to find the entrance. Whereas the train station and the interior courtyard had other interests with smell and sound.

We also tried to implement an increased spatial thinking by using three pieces of literature. Steinfield and which was not so acclaimed by the pupils and we also used author which on the other hand was more praised because it supplied a theory they could use for one of their assignments and thirdly, we also used fictional novel by a French author which was completely rejected by the students. And additionally they could choose additional literature due to their assignments. However, one student managed to solve the puzzle of the space in the French novel and he managed to produce this. It’s a three dimensional image of the main backdrop to the events that are taking place. Some preliminary conclusions, although there was a big part from the students about this type of education, but we could confirm they mostly use the vision to assess the environment and other senses become active due to the use of the special type of architecture. On the other hand, at the end of the course, they seem to be more aware of the importance of creating accessibility and usability and one of the students made a piece on the way finding and she found out that the new Swedish way of promoting public procurements of medical care which has caused an explosion on new primary health centers caused quite difficult problems for people with some type of disability because the maps were not updated and even more, the signage was not logic. It was very difficult to find a way with the medical center. And also in line with the previous keynote speakers, we could also find that although these are quite recently developed and accomplished new residential buildings, there was less in how to think about accessibility and usability in designs the entrance to a new residential building and therefore, it seemed to be as if the architects had not thought three dimensional in this case. There was collisions and conflicts of usefulness. So what could be said about this as an over arching conclusion? Well, accessibility and usability and also inclusions, they seem to be spatial constituents that need to be activated on a personal level by the individual designer and therefore, we have tried to implement the experience from this also by the architecture students.
Also, the papers on these courses are presented on our web page. For example, the study on the entrance could be accessible for other people. That was my presentation. Thank you!
>> Jonas, let’s see if we have any questions.
>> Thank you for your presentation. My name is Oscar and I’m in industrial design. You talked about nursing homes and how it’s like home like and you said similar answers between architects and other professions. Did you also ask old people about it?
>> Well, you have to understand that the test protocol is especially designed observational protocol. And you are supposed to use this protocol with, I think it’s about 32 questions during an individual study visit or 45 to 60 minutes and of course, it’s only the assessor’s impression.
On the other hand, and they are supposed to pass through the unit as an observer but without taking part of the events that are ongoing. So in that case, what the older people think about the environment is not concluded in the protocol per se. On the other hand, the full rating of the protocol gave you some indication whether it’s a good or bad environment for people and further more, it’s mostly developed for environments with people with dementia so in that case, the main dimension is not just old people who have an opinion about their environment.
>> Thank you, any more questions?
>> I have a question. Why do you think that the students, or, I don’t know, architects, I can’t keep them apart. Why did they lack the visualization that we were talking about?
>> Well, first of all, it’s just related to accessibility, usability because it’s very much of a type of fiscal requirement in the Swedish building code and once you assess the choice from the project that was designed for all and initiated, there are no great differences between the drawings or the final exams produced at the school of architecture and other schools that participated because most students, they only use the floor plan and they indicate the circle for there’s enough space for turning around in a wheelchair but they don’t think about the spatial experience when you, for instance, access the building through a ramp on the other side whereas you as a fully abled person are allowed to access the building from the main entrance. That is the cases that could occur in the student’s final exam projects.
>> Well, what I get a little bit confused by is that my impression as architects, you work a lot with 3 D visualizations. Some way to visualize the 3 D space so why do you think this doesn’t transfer to the accessibility?
>> Mainly, I think the main reason for this, perhaps this could be to quote Patricia, it’s not considered to be sexy. It’s one of the detailed requirements in the Sweden building code and you can find it in additional literature and therefore, it’s more of a mandatory thing that you have to respect rather than a thing that you have to explore spatially or as a designer.
Some students do this research and they try to integrate using a spatial experience but 50/50 well, half of it is student projects and you can see the accessibility and usability has been integrated in a very late stage.

>> Good morning, everyone. We will hear three talks. We’ll start with a long one and we will hear about Norwegian criteria and acoustic study and accessibility for all. It will be presented.
>> Thank you very much. This presentation is about the acoustic building criteria as part of the Norwegian legislation and we have been one of the first developing a device which is referred to in this building procedure. It’s about acoustics and also about the survey that has been made which is pretty much the basis for the Norwegian building criteria for 2010 and also, the device for 2012. So the real expert behind this paper is my colleague. She could not be here today. I’m going to do the presentation and any technical questions should not be directed to me.
She’s working in the standardization of acoustics in University and I’m working in transport services in Norway.
So we have several standards for guidelines from the universal design, especially in the building as referred to in this the building criteria for the regulation for the plan of building. We understand there’s some housing on the buildings on the development areas like parks, kindergartens and so on. I missioned IT services and acoustics. So for those who are not familiar with this standardization system, I mentioned it briefly now what the system is. This is very much used and very much abused because everybody says that he or she has the highest standard or we are making standards, so on and so on but the foremost standard is by the numbers. It’s a system, a national system with the top seven in Europe and then standards that Norway brings to the national level and what they produce besides the first and foremost standards is system and even process. It suggested alternatives but other options are possible. This means ultimately it goes through this part of legislation and another standard is not another piece of legislation so it gives advice on how to do things.
So the standardization comes in, they have to get really concrete environments like some people like to joke it’s a document about safety but it’s more than that. Another important thing to remember is that the standard is made by stakeholders who need persistent regulations in the market. They have voluntary to use. It’s like the American’s with disabilities act but in Europe, it can be voluntary but it can be referred to more regulations which is the case for housing and others.
So first about the Norwegian building codes and normal standardization. The building codes are sort of a regulation related to the building acts. Since 2010 in particular, it has been very much consistent for University sites, environments for environment procedures and so on and environments for accessibility. And of course, acoustics is an important factor with universal design.
They fulfill the needs for kids so no additional need be in the building itself. The point here is to make this requirement fulfilled during the design process. So we have Norwegian standard which is eight months which is very important. It provides criteria and sound installation for indoor, out door noise made by building and in surrounding out door areas.
The old person came in 2008 but the advice was adopted in 2012. It’s about the acoustic conditions in buildings, sound in various types of buildings. I’m going to talk more about it later but it’s about four, from A to D. A is the best, the first one, the first acoustic specific and so on. So the additional criteria was made as a consequence of new University assignments and code. This I said, came in 2010 after a long period. It was adopted and now it is now qualified written statements about how to implement planning and building acts. It requires universal design of all new buildings, both public buildings and not. And when existing buildings are having a major renovation so acoustics was introduced as part of this.
To find out how acoustics and the noise conditions were functioning and which was in particular public buildings as a Socio acustic survey, it was conducted among members of the groups so it was contacted to them.
User groups, as far as I know are fairly new organizations. So the object of this survey was to find out what types of buildings should be regulated and which should limit values regarding the noise. How are people disturbed by conditions inside persons of these landscapes, and shopping centers and so on. So it sounds like acoustic conditions is important but they often very little talk about accessible building. They talk about, they should be very possible to navigate. They should be easy to use indoors and so on but the acoustics is a very important part for deaf and hard of hearing and also for blind people. Have you ever been to a train station trying to understand what they’re saying on the loud speakers? You know, sometimes it’s not very good and everybody is talking outside of the room. So why a survey and why a new standard? The acoustic conditions are at the up most importance of each of the locations and general behavior. How do we ask? How do we think or react when we have a lot of noise?
For people with normal hearing and even more with reduce hearing, I would like to mention that Norway, we have a population that’s more than 67 years old so this is not about the small group of hearing impaired people but it’s about everyone. The standardization, it’s also called universal design and it’s very advantageous. But any way, we wanted to look at the results of how people experienced poor acoustic conditions and problems and those conditions require a higher degree of task. Try to find your way to the guide train and they’re very often stressed and fatigue will be the result of that kind of condition.
So first, I will talk about the survey itself and then about the effect of this survey on the building and of the stand up.
So some question remainsment we sent out a questionnaire. How have you been during the noise conditions in the last 12 months in restaurants, cafes and cafeterias. How hard do you have concentrating and how difficult do you find it difficult to have a conversation in small areas or large areas in centers due to noise.
It based this question together with the research institute on the technical reports by 1566 concerning noise and noise service. This technical report has a five point announce scale. The percent of the sample was 1187 subjects. There was a lot of persons but the percentage shows responses could be. We have 71 hearing impaired people. The final percentage was 23. And for the telephone interviews, the number of selected subjects was originally 683 but we were able to come in contact with only 347 of these. So we had responses from 250 visually impaired by persons which is 37 percent.
Now, why was it the response rate? This questionnaire was ten pages. I don’t like ten page questionnaires myself. I’m not always happy about the opportunity to fill it out. It may influence the low percentage of replies. For telephone interviews, however, the reasons for the low reply and percentage that the subjects did not answer the phone. They asked to call back later or the selected projects that people would wish to participate with the study of that. The survey was not conducted by Norway but the institution of research. The survey of the acoustic conditions and spaces in public buildings and some out door areas and there was a questionnaire sent out.
As I said, the telephone interviews were done by the people and yes, I told you, the announce came with the technical report. The large difference is meant to be there. We found large differences between the disabled people as to the announce over the public spaces.
>> We want be able to study and analyze is that in the future, the results to talk about how we attract and analyze it. It has not been totally analyzed because of the select resources. This is at five percent. How many are very much or extremely annoyed, we have a percentage after different premises. We will have the biggest one as the production pole. We may have 61 percent of the hearing impaired people. The second one, number three, here we have 47.6 and 16.3. And the third one we have a large standard for those, it’s indoor terminals and stations for public transport. And finally, actually, 33.3 and 64.4. These are big numbers for those groups but then you also have like here, cafeteria, you have 49.8 and 12.8. Expo, talk about this and so on, it’s also interesting to look at the places where we have rather large numbers with hearing impaired people and low numbers were issued with groups. 7.7 versus 5.6. Plan offices 27.6. Open plan offices have 6.2. I’m not sure why but this one is like the office landscapers and then also, I think we have a navigation problem for those who are initially impaired.
>> The out door, you can see it’s 1.5 percent among hearing impaired people and 8.6 around vision impaired people. Other areas we investigated were shopping centers. We have 27.6 and 40.6 and again, that’s quite big numbers and the second out door terminal areas would have a transport with the 3.3 and 4.3. And staircases, big staircases, we have a lot of noise of 12.8 and 12.5 and that’s very well aligned.
Here, for instance, 20 versus six. Churches, 12.4 versus 1.8. Initially people have problems in churches. Almost the same number for parking areas very close in walk ways and close to buildings and museums. This is a very low process. I know the analysis is among percentage of hearing. This is a dark and a light. Along the first of the dark is open plan offices and we’d like to introduce to open plans. So the frequent use of open plan offices is to see about 40 percent often people have problems. 50 percent of the users have it. Sometimes it can be certifiable. It’s about 19 percent for offices and ten percent for open plan.
Never having any problems, that’s about five percent. I results, we can elaborate more on the side of analysis but this is more about practical use and legislation. At least in the circumstances we have. So these themselves are used in the application of buildings. First off, all of the scope must have Norwegian classes for acoustic quality concern for buildings, hospitals, kindergartens, offices, and premiseses like productions. I was thinking in my brain it’s also when you have more and more, like, open office landscapes. I think these numbers and these results should have a concern about how you make the acoustic conditions in every office when you have more people in one space and each one had a cubicle. Sometimes the updates are made for these buildings. There is significant results especially for open plan teaching environments and offices.
The emphasis was made on this and then the acoustic noise levels and the needs for sound amplification systems like hearing aids, and so on are evaluated for all buildings including those without the specified acoustic beforehand like museums that are very open, assembly halls and so on. About the impact sound and installation part, no changes were made with the exception of video conferences. On the sound level, noise level part, they were more strict limits added. On the point, for the criteria for it, time and acoustic absorption have been made more strict and the limits for for time is related to June 8th. Additional parameters for acoustic conditions in open plan spaces, they is speech, transmission index, SPI, speech attenuation and distance. New requirements for use of technical aids and various buildings are made. For instance, induction loops or hearing aid loops. In sound equalization equipment and similar and then the requirement for this and the written text are going to follow this in the specific standards for how these results can also be used for future standards pointing out specific basis of specific services provided, and just the frame work around this. Well, based on the results it’s open landscapes and open plans that we need to focus on.
Conclusions, this is a common one. Increase knowledge about the experience of hearing impaired people on various buildings to access spaces in itself. Everyone thinks that more analysis can be made with the data. New criteria has been adopted in the standard to following the needs of the aging population. As I mentioned, development and also part of the focus of the building.
I think this is more with these groups. This is more for people in the different way so this is also disable people. We got new criteria in June acoustics and noise conditions suitable for all public buildings in the basis of the acoustic survey. So I think the main point here, we have a new understanding of the content of the universal design et cetera and also what kind of difference we have talked about.
Some more conclusions, update specifically for open environment teaching. Less than two percent because it has been well, this is very important in the debate. As for disability for all, that’s not a good debate. When you talking about the acoustic by using variation related to peaks, music absorption and noise level with the index. Acoustic specification, updates for all building types. Permission for sound systems and assistive listening devices are required in every development. I can also tell you we have chose standards on buildings and on housing. They are about to be revised now by the committee and of course, they still have a system with the new building standards. Especially for some buildings. So that’s basically it. As I said as an introduction, I commend you to send e mails to my colleague who is the expert, technical expert on acoustics but more general questions, I will take. Thank you!
>> Thank you, and now we have time for some questions.
>> Good morning. This is not the place and time to go into details. I don’t have the numbers in my head but as you know, concepts and numbers and categorizes different building types but the real, it’s the sum of the numbers, for instance pointing to the time which is quite dramatically changing. I have concerns in acoustics so even if this sounds very formal and bureaucratic, I would like to challenge you. Can you give some examples of some numbers on not a set of numbers but in some areas, actually, reduction or whatever, the time for something like 20 percent, 30 percent. That’s just a bunch of automatic. So even if it sounds tone just to remind you, a standard is not mandatory. You don’t have to use it.
It’s very interesting to see quite dramatic changes in all of these numbers.
>> I thought the degree is behind the numbers also. If it’s constant and you are up to serious mistakes in what you’re doing, even if I’m just talking numbers and figures and so on, you have to remember there’s an effect on what is behind the results and also, if you correct the legislation and the standard as far as it’s utilized and you follow these regulations, you have a very scientific background to make the requirements.
>> Okay.
>> Good day and I don’t know if I maybe missed out on a bit but the actual survey was a part of the information for chasing the standard or was that the only information?
>> Well, it was specifically made by the standardization committee. It’s not made by the standards but by the institute. In the past we have abided by the standardization and the members of the committee. But of course, those are members of the organization committee because they, themselves are experts. They often do this when it was asked for a scientific analysis of a problem before on how to solve this standard.
>> Okay, but this is the only
>> As far as
>> Research that changed the standard?
>> Yes, and also the environments in building and information.
>> Do you think this is satisfactory changing?
>> Well, the results were very obvious. The members of the committee already knew about the problems. The reports came from organizations and so forth but it’s not a specific survey ordered but with more financial needs, it makes the surveys, you know, research institutes but that was really the limits we had to be done.
>> Okay, thank you!
>> Good morning and thank you for the presentation because this is really important. And I can give you one name, professor of TAPIOLOWKKI. And they have made a brilliant research, scientific research about acoustics and he said that they are not a single good class room in the whole world, not a single one.
And yesterday, keynote, I’m really sorry to say that when we had research saying that hearing impaired people cannot be covered in the same, that’s non sense. Of course, of course. Everybody and that means everybody, everybody in this room, needs good acoustics and when you go to profoundly deaf people, they are using sign language interpreters and typist. By the demonstration of this here is how important that a typist, yes, what I’m speak here is all acoustics and even more bad news. UK and US, they have made very big survey, it’s easy to Google and they have found in hundreds of class rooms that only the first are good for listening and hearing. Nobody hears well. This is where we’re giving higher, we have to improve our acoustics. That’s serious. People, good work and this is really a starting point but we have to really change the situation.
>> Thank you, I couldn’t agree more with you. This is very important and I mentioned that open office landscape which more and more are moving into, I’m not saying this is the solution but schools, Universities and even public traveling, I think statistics say that about 20 percent of people have problems with the use of public transport. Not just because of the different difficulties of getting realtime information for those with hearing troubles so this is a vast thing. But I hope that not we make a standard on this but of course, research institutes will also make investigations. So I mentioned to my English colleague who, I guess, he knows about it but any way, he will do it in that committee and also have sort of an overlapping of the building.
>> Are there any further questions?
>> Just a brief comment on the last speaker. The investigation, this project that we have referred to isn’t just for people with hearing impairment. Of course, it would be interesting to have sort of a control group with people not defined as having a visual or hearing impairment. I’m suspicious that even for such a group you would have fairly high numbers for people who are annoyed or disturbed by bad acoustics so that’s just a comment to the former on the colleague. So that’s really to demonstrate. This is a real challenge for all, not just for people with hearing and visual impairment.
>> Thank you, I think I’ll let the next speaker prepare and thank you again for the talk.

>> So the next topic will be how to improve accessibility in historical buildings. That has been a topic already earlier in this conference, and Niina Kilpelä will talk about the home of John Sibelius who was a famous composer in the last century and how it has been made accessible.

>> Hello, everyone. My name is Niina Kilpelä and I’m working as an architect. I have very impressive title, how to improve accessibility in historical buildings to deal within 15 minutes. So I have chosen one example.
First shortly the history and facts and Ainola residence and then take up the accessibility orders we’ve been conducting and then I will have a DVD presentation about the residence with me, which includes the architect’s comments on the design work.

The Ainola residence is the home of the Sibelius and designed by an architect for one of the greatest symphony composers of all time. The house was completed in 1904. The lower floor had a study, dining room, kitchen and a room for servants. The upper floor was completed some years later and comprised a bedroom for the parents and a study with a view to the lake.
So from the home, it has turned into a museum, which is now open for the — the lower floor is open to the public during the summer months. So Ainola, the home to the Sibelius for 16 years and the interiors and furnishings date from various decades and the present state of Ainola is an authentic representation of the house from the ’60s, like 10 years after Sibelius’ death.
The accessibility order was carried out in 2008 and I was responsible for it, and it included the accessibility of moving, seeing, hearing and understanding both within the buildings as well as in the surrounding areas. And the method that we used was just described. This time we had to focus on visitors’ point of view. The main entrance turned out to be the biggest barrier. Of course, the road to the museum is quite steep as well. We had several suggestions to improve accessibility such as accessibility parking places, accessibility entrance to museum itself, accessibility toilet somewhere at the area, using induction in the ticket booth and museum. And adding benches for places to rest.
So the accessibility audit report we made was used as data for the design. After careful studies a platform lift was mounted at the entrance.
The accessibility improvements were designed by architects in cooperation. The cafe and accessibility toilets were located in the service building and a lot was done, but the landscape still remains challenging. If necessary, the museum can be reached by the car.
Here is the picture of the main entrance to Ainola with the level differences before the changes. And here is almost a similar picture after the changes. You can hardly notice any difference at all. The new platform lift is mounted on the left side of the stairs, still well hidden when the gate is closed. It’s only when opening the gate when you see the glimpse of the lift itself.
From the side of the terrace up there, it’s part of the flow out to the terrace, well hidden as well. At the same time there were new handrails added to the stairs. And to get a little bit better view, we could continue with the DVD.

[ video playing ]

>> So the credit of the DVD goes to the Association of People can Physical Disabilities. I would like to thank you for your attention. If there are questions tab accessibility audit or the process, I will be happy to answer.

[Applause]

>> Hello. Thank you for the presentation. I have a question about the lift to the house. According to Swedish rules of accessibility, you have to be able to manage the lift by yourself. But I could see that the person in the wheelchair had to have a helper to get on the lift. So I wonder, why is it that way? What was the idea about it?
>> Well, you can maneuver the lift yourself. There’s a remote control that she was holding. You can use it yourself as well. It’s just the challenge in part of this blocking away this part to open the gate.
>> Yeah, it was a problem with the bench on the side.
>> Yeah, it is —
>> So it was inaccessible.
>> I agree it’s not perfect. I think in this case it’s not that problematic as it would be somewhere else. I wouldn’t recommend this kind of a thing somewhere else, public buildings, but here you contact the staff already while you’re in the area buying tickets and they’re aware you’re coming and they are taking it for granted that you’ll get assisted. You are not entering the building on your own whether you’re able-bodied or not.
>> Thank you
>> There’s a place for a few more questions or you’re just waiting for the lunch now?

Nobody?

>> There is one question.
>> Hello. I’m from Iceland. Thank you for the presentation. The movie, will it be on YouTube?
>> Now I have to ask my colleagues. I don’t think it’s on YouTube, but are there still copies to buy about this DVD?
Are there some examples left?
They are saying yes.
>> I would like to, if possible, to have one.
>> Please contact me. The DVD includes several different examples about our facility.
>> No more?
Okay.
>> Is there only a physical access, wheelchair access or there any accessibility provision for other disabilities as well?
>> The main focus on this one was on the accessibility, like physical access, but they have been doing some changes about the accessibility of hearing as well with different kind of methods for hearing loops and things like that as well as in their services, which were not mentioned here as well, but I have to say, the focus is on the physical accessibility. And that is one of the parts of the process at the moment, but I think that was the huge challenge we had, that the idea of very historical buildings, that they want to preserve — to show it’s possible to make it accessible even here.

>> I’m just curious to know, the cost of the platform lift that you used, approximately. Do you know?
>> I will have to say I don’t know at the moment, but it’s not a normal lift, so I don’t think — it wasn’t any special amount. I don’t dare to say because I don’t know. Somebody asked earlier about this audit method and about all the measurements. As we used the same method here, I would like to add that the more experienced you get, the easier you have to see like how much you’re measuring. So it’s a lot of effort, but…
>> But you don’t discover things that you can’t measure?
>> Well, as was mentioned, some of this accessibility of the visual environment and that kind of things, they can’t be really measured. You have to somehow just try to compare them, and we got good guidance to that as well.

>> So if this was the final question — nobody feels for questioning more, I want to thank all the presenters for their interesting presentations. And also the audience for joining us this morning.
So I hope you will have a nice lunch.
[Applause]
[ Session concluded ]

So the next presenter comes from our neighbor country, Denmark. It’s Sidse Grangaard and she will talk about awareness is essential if accessibility in existing buildings.

>> Hi. My name is Sidse and as was told I’m from Denmark. The Danish Building Research Institute. We have address in Copenhagen.
Today I will tell you a story about a case study in an existing building, and then we are going to look at the factors that had an impact on the accessibility in the building.
It is an old power station and there was a competition in 2006, but before we can describe the building as being very complexed. There was a lot of different levels. I don’t know how to use this, but we can see at the drawing up there. And the power station was made for machines. They were not thinking about accessibility for people.
And I also have to remember to say that this part is new, but we have four — we have five different elements of buildings built together during that last 100 years. So it was very complex. In 2006 can, during the period from 2006 to 2011, this building was transformed. So today we can find cinemas, an art gallery, restaurants, sports club, and also a sports club for disabled people. So it’s a very interesting place with public assist and a lot of different users, different kinds of users. So that’s why we chose this for a case study. We were going to make this explorative study that determined this at Nordkraft. That’s the name of this power station. There were a lot of accessibility solution in this building, so we have to narrow, and we chose to — we chose 14 solutions, spaces for wheelchair users in cinema, lift, parking spaces, walking service indicators, a ramp, and we visit the place and made interviews with the architect, the public ability advisor. This ministry policy they have chosen to hire an accessibility advisor.
We looked at architectural drawings and minutes from different meetings and all the emails they had written to each other during the process.
It was also very important to map this process, not only look at the single solution.
We had an expectation because when we were with the place, we thought, oh, all those solutions, they have been developed because of the — I’ll start from the beginning.
We felt that all the solution of accessibility would be dependent on factors as the construction of the building, the cultural heritage, the architecture and also the economic situation in the process. The municipality, they did not want to pay too much for this building.

But we found out this turned out to be different than we expected, because, of course, all these factors, they played a role, but because the building with all its concrete, it’s quite a big structure and this building creates some challenges and at the same time the building also represents a history. A history of an industrial development and at the same time this building, Nordkraft, is also a landmark in the town.
But when we found out that another factor played a major role, we had named this factor awareness about accessibility. But what is awareness about accessibility or perhaps it’s also Universal Design. Awareness about accessibility, it is about ambitions. The program of the architecture competition, there were no ambitions. Only in relation to the sports club for disabled people, it was written that the sports club should be accessible, but that was the only thing. But when we looked at the process that we have mapped, we could see that there is a shift in focus during this process and we think it’s about in 2008 we can see a shift, because the owner, the municipality, they make a new disability policy in 2008 and the name of this disability policy is a disability policy for the municipality, more than an action. They want more, to do more, and they make this job accessibility advisor and hire an accessibility advisor and also the architect, the architect studio or company, they write a note in 2008 in December where they write that they want to use — they have it in the headline, do not use the word Universal Design anymore, but they write that solutions seeking to be usable for as many users as possible and concurrently bring quality and value to the project.
Awareness to accessibility is also about knowledge. And one aspect of knowledge is the attention to the legal requirement to the building. Regulation in Denmark, we have the building regulation, and if you follow this building regulation, then the building is okay.
At Nordkraft we could see that it was very important how the architects were thinking about this building regulation. Because here we have a ramp and a star and here the accessibility advisor, she pointed out that this ramp was unsafe because there was no guard rail. And the architect here explained that when we made this interview last year, he said that they knew about this requirement but they did not want to follow it. They decided to ignore it to emphasize the architectural intention of this design, because the ramp was seen as a piece of furniture, that people should sit down and also a place for concerts and they wanted — if there was a musician, then the musician could go out and play on his guitar and people should stop and sit down and have a little party or a little concert.
But after a while there was made this big rage because there had been some accidents there. So when we interviewed the architect last year, we asked him what he had learned from this project and he said, it is crucial to focus on accessibility from the beginning in a building process. He is not pleased with this solution because he thinks it spoils the original thought or idea that people should — that it should be possible to sit here on this furniture, and now it’s not any furniture anymore. But he believed if they had focused on the problem from the beginning, then they might have found a very good solution instead of this where they had to put it on after a while.
Awareness about accessibility is also about the requirements, the provisions, but also about the needs. And here, this is in the first phase of the building process, we have chosen a solution that we have evaluated. And here the accessibility advisor pointed out that the handrail — here and also over here and here, at the staircase, it did not meet the requirements of the building regulation since they were not easy to grip and hold on. As a result of this problem of the handrail, a dialogue between the professionals were initiated and then the owner insisted on a redesign of the handrail, not in this phase of the process, but in the other part of the building.
So we can see that the dialogue and the design of the handrail were qualified by the knowledge that the accessibility advisor contributed about the requirements, but not only the requirements, but also what the requirements — what does it mean? Why does it write that it would be nice to hold on?
And we concede that in the other part of the building, that it is much nicer to hold on this than the other. And I tried it when I was there, this one, and it was really a scary feeling to walk down this stair.
But it is also an understanding of the user’s need that is also an aspect of knowledge. And this project, the architect had originally decided to use tactile walking surface indicators made of small elements of — I think you all know this kind. In Denmark we call these small ones, we call them after a specific kind of chocolate, and this photo, all of these small pieces of chocolate, they are still here. I think that everybody has seen a place where half of them are — or some of them, they are missing. But they found out that it would be too expensive. But then it was decided to find another solution. And this new solution was designed and dialogued between all the professionals and also the accessibility advisor and during this process she communicated about the need of the visually impaired persons. So you can say that she defined a performance-based requirement. And at the same time the building aspires to the use of an industrial checker plate — you can see it here, this plate. They painted it orange because orange was one of the colors in the design manual, and the design manual was created based on colors that they found in the building from before.
The location of the outdoor walking surface indicators was changed because of the accessibility advisor’s knowledge about how blind people walk in a building. But it was also placed inside the building. It is not — I do not want every house or building to be full of all this tactile walking surface indicators, but in this building, it’s a good idea because it is really a complex building and also we are — I can see but I can also use this as kind of a guideline for the building. So it plays a role in a wayfinding perspective.
She aimed at a higher accessibility level than the building regulation prescribed and she had also ambition on behalf of the project and at the same time she contributed with knowledge from guidelines and she also showed the team a lot of examples from other buildings. And the architect told us that he did really appreciate all these examples.

>> We have to break.
>> I quickly will say it’s also important dialogue about the level of accessibility and also the solution and I’m not going to say anything about this.
And here I have some as awareness as an approach. We see it as an approach.
>> Thank you very much.

[Applause]

>> So I leave the floor to the audience. Again, some questions.
Here, this way.

>> Thank you very much for the presentation, and also I agree that awareness is very important, but you’ve implied that awareness is important for the designer in the design process and starting from the beginning, but wouldn’t you also say that it’s important for the building departments?
>> Yes, and I will have told a little story about it on one of the slides that I had to jump over, because they had — I think it’s important for the owner and also for the people doing the maintainers of the building, also to be aware of all the people who use this building.
>> So I’m getting at the municipalities themselves that approve the buildings, right?
So if an architect designs a building, before it can be built, it has to be approved by the building department somewhere in the municipality, and the person that approves it and the people that go out and inspect the building should be that last check, because it shouldn’t get built if it doesn’t meet the regulations.
>> We have a system in Denmark and I’m not going to make a big discussion about this, but I think it’s very important that there’s an awareness on all levels in the process, also in the building authorities when they make the — what is it — when they give you the permission to build.
[ Speaker is off microphone ]

>> But they focus on fire in Denmark in many municipalities instead of accessibility.

>> Hello. Thank you for your presentation. And you talked in the presentation about a sports facility and a sports facility for disableds. So obviously there are too. I was wondering what a sports facility for disableds could mean. Would you explain that, please?
>> There are different sports clubs. They use some of the same facilities, but they are two different clubs
>> What is a sports club for disabled?
>> They have bigger bathrooms.
>> And are you only allowed to go there if you’re disabled?
>> No, as I told you, they use the same facilities, but there are — in the program for the competition, there was some extra —
>> So there is one sports club which is not suitable for disableds and the other one is?
>> Because they have their own sports club for handicapped persons.
>> Okay.

>> We are a bit behind schedule, but, I don’t know, is there any other question?
>> Thank you. It was a very interesting presentation.
We are going on this concept on your Universal Design and we have discussions too, and I like the steps that you showed. And I think when we talk about Universal Design, it should be some kind of compromise decision, because up to now, we just had the accessibility adoption and some kind of stigmatization of disabled persons. Society is not accepting this. It is not good for them. Nobody can sit on these steps and have a rest. But we are discussing that this is a way of compromise. That if you want to have attractable, usable and nice, let’s say, aesthetic surrounding, you must have compromise. And to lower your needs, let’s say, from the side of disabled persons to be more accepted by society and society will be more open, I think. So just thoughts that came from me from your presentations.
>> But I want to thank, I think we have learned from this study. We knew it before, but now we could see that it is very important to think about it from the beginning, to be aware from the beginning.

>> But we had noticed a lot of this very simple adaptation and usually it’s not accessible for all society. And now we have this task/purpose that in the widest amount, let’s say, for society to be acceptable. Thank you.

>> I just had a very quick question myself. These accessibility advisors, are they private ones or by the municipality?
>> It’s a job from the municipality.

>> Thank you once more, Sidse.

[Applause]

>> Okay, it’s 10 past 10:00, so I think we should start this session. Welcome, all of you to this session, which would be about accessibility and the built environment. My name is Alyssa and I’ll be the moderator. We have four presentations this morning and I think this is a general procedure that the presentations will be 15 minutes and then we’ll have 5 minutes for questions. So my job is to see to it that people are keeping that time.
Okay.
And the first speaker is Sanna-Kaisa Timonen who is going to talk about methods to evaluate accessibility in built environment.
Please.
>> Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Sanna-Kaisa Timonen and I work as an accessibility planner in ESKE from Helsinki, Finland. My presentation is method to evaluate accessibility in built environment.

Earlier, in Finland, accessibility was accelerated in many different ways depending on the evaluator’s background, experience and knowledge with very varying results.
The evaluation method ESKEH was created between 2007 and 2009 at the Finland Association of People with Disabilities.
ESKEH taught factual information on accessibility. This information is valuable to make decisions, for example, when planning the evaluation of the building.
Accessibility is not an opinion. A commonly agreed method and criteria was needed. In evaluating accessibility in the built environment, it’s a question of understanding the needs of disabled people and understanding and knowing the building codes and guidelines.
It is a question of understanding and knowing what measures have to be taken, of knowing each criteria. Knowing how to take the measures and how to write them down and how to analyze them. As well as knowing the tolerances.
At the end of the project, the content for a training program for accessibility evaluators was planned. The first course was organized together with the University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. Today three other universities own this course.

A wide range of disability and cultural organizations, ministries, authorities and institutes were presented in the steering group and working groups of the project. The method was tested and commented by many, many more organizations.
Here are some pictures on testing the forms. Is this okay?
Shall we change something?

We had to have a person with an assistant talk in the working group.
The basis of all criteria at the Finland building regulations are quite general, including few re-orders or information. They are based more on the idea that architects and the other planners how to do. Over 20 Finnish and foreign practices were studied carefully to set the criteria and it was added with few others to quality of ESKEH.
Each of the 1,000 criteria had to be agreed on. This is where all that was needed.
How should good contrast be defined? How long must the lift door stay open? What is the good height for the preferred table and so on?

Accessibility can be measured. Every criterion can be measured. Every time a new criterion was added, the measuring method was concerned as well. There is exception. Sensory environments are partly evaluated by observation in the method ESKEH.
And here are some pictures about how to measure things, how they measure the door open. It’s a very simple task.
How they measured the dress hold. It’s not a question of the dress hold itself but the total height difference, so you need a level to assist the tool.
How to measure the force to open a door. A normal weight scale, for example, a suitcase, a simple tool for the purpose. Just place the hook around the door handle and pull.
Every detail has to be measured. Here is the size of the information. A manual was needed. How to evaluate ability of an environment is a manual for accessibility outdoors and those who need it. It includes four parts. The introduction, instructions for clients ordering accessibility orders, instructions for auditors and a model report.
It also includes main accessibility legislation.
The instructions for orders concerns preparations, information about tools, instructions for measuring acoustic visual environment, working in green areas, entrance, moving indoors, facilities, fire safety and accessibility, instructions for reporting is in manual too.
The result is reported in tabular form, including proposals, how to improve ability. Is there any danger? And so on.

All results are compared to criterion.
Since the method was developed, it has been extended to include new type of facilities. Last year the criteria for sports facilities were included. It will be followed this year by the ability criteria for the nature trails. And here is something we are going to do.
Thank you.

[Applause]

>> I have this manual with me. This is Finish, but I put it here, so if somebody is interested, please come and you can look at the picture and things that I have here with me.

>> Thank you very much, Sanna-Kaisa, for your presentation. You finished earlier, so we have time for more questions. So, please, are there any questions?

>> Very good. Dublin, Ireland. Two things. One, have you looked at the approach to the buildings, such as from the car park or the footpath outside the buildings? And number two, have you looked at this as an app to be used on a phone?
And the third question probably, have you translated it into any other language?
>> Yes. The first question, yes, both are included in this criteria. And, no, we haven’t translated yet. It’s in Finnish still.

Yes, all those tabular forms you can use on the Internet, so you can take it there whenever you like.

>> Any further questions?

I was thinking myself of something. You say you can measure everything. Is it necessary to measure everything?

>> Well, sometimes yes.
>> Is it possible at all? I’m thinking of the lecturer this morning who was talking about you could do everything according to measures — I mean, physical measures, but still the same maybe it’s not accessible or usable.
>> Yes, and that is why it took so long and that wide cooperation was needed because there were so many different people to do that exact thing, so everyone’s opinion has taken in there, so that’s why there’s so many things you’re measuring.
It’s not an opinion. It’s agreement. And that way — and then you have all those measures there that you can say why this should be like this. The dress hold is not about 2 or 3-centimeters. It’s exact thing.
>> That is quite easy to decide, but there are other things maybe that are not so easy to measure for.
>> It wasn’t easy. No, it wasn’t easy.
>> And did you have any difficulties in getting people to follow these recommendations? How was it approached by people who are going to use it?

>> We have now evaluators which have training, about 80 in Finland and about 40 of them are doing this evaluating in this method. And, actually, I don’t know — well, 40 are doing this now.

>> Thanks. I would be interested to know if you could outline a little bit the standards in Finland and what buildings it applies to and is it just public buildings and do that apply to private residences? And has there been an attempt in Finland, if not, to look at accessibility standards in relation to private dwellings?

>> There is no so much in the private buildings in the regulation and realize it’s more in public buildings.

>> So if there are no more questions, I think we proceed to the next speaker. Thank you once again for the presentation.

[Applause]
>> Thank you.

>> For our next presentation, here is Jiro Sagara, who is going to present about UD principles for home appliances and some talking devices to support independent life for dementia or MCI.

Very soon.

>> Good afternoon. My name is Jiro Sagara. Pronounced Jay in Japanese.
I’m in corporate product design division and the others — I’m sorry.

The others are at Corbett University. Today I mention these things.
Everyday technology means all kind of technologies we use in daily life. Not only in the home but also out of the home. Our daily life is supported by a lot of things, such as subway systems, ATM, and Smart Phone and microwave oven and so on.
Who lives in cities, like you, if we use these technologies, we use independence.
I’m sorry.

all of us become disabled. And Japanese is well known as most aged society around the world. Now, in Japan, about a quarter of elderlies have cognitive problems in daily life. In 2025, all baby boomers become 75 years old. And then 20% of Japanese are older. Elderlies in their old house can keep their life by technologies. Some can use the microwave oven for food. And the TV set gives information. A phone call, contact relatives and confirming safe.
Persons who have cognitive disorder tend to make mistake in their daily life. When? Cooking on the stove. Some phone calls. They stop cooking. He forgot the pot on the stove.
If this happens, his or her relatives may stop doing such daily things. This is loss in cognitive function. Dementia is a developing disease. Continuous use of the brain may keep the cognitive function. So we think that everyday technology should be designed to be able to be used by persons with mild cognitive impairment as Universal Design or inclusive design. And the assistive technologies which support cognitive ability should be produced more, the same as assistive technology for physical disability. Finally, we want to propose supportive paths for MCI to keep independent life as long as possible. A Smart House was focusing — focused on physical problems and cognitive ability by automated control. We surveyed elderlies who live alone or alone in daytime by using an everyday technology questionnaire developed by an institute in Sweden.

Subjects are asked that are still using or not everyday technologies. 93 items are listed, however, we arranged it for Japanese lifestyle.
Then the items become one. This is ongoing service, so we’re gathering more data, but today I imagine 91 subjects which are in our database already.
This shows stage, gender, age, the mental stage and examination points. The depression scale and the activity index of subjects. It’s use as an index of dementia. Higher points shows depression and lower FAI shows low activities. And this shows top 20ETsamong all subjects. Many of them quit using the iron, vacuum cleaner and rice cooker. Most are using TV set, however, some are facing trouble with the TV set. In case of dementia and MCI, more ETsare useless. Such as washing machine or gas stove. And dementia has difficulty in using the TV set. After digitized broadcasting. Elderlies tend to change their lifestyle, using their spouse. They tend to change their life more simple than when they are living with spouse.
This shows a type of microwave oven which is still by dementias. Only time to cook wise.
And the dementias still using rotary type controls rather than push button type one. It isn’t forgotten after setting value by controls.
The location and graphics are important. Change the meaning of the set or start button. Guidance is quite effective to keep using.
Some family member adapt additional use or max on ET, such as mobile phone. One has a cover to hide unnecessary things on the TV set. It works good for dementia, but sound elderlies felt time-consuming way to choose a channel.
The family developed and devised to support air conditioner in a similar way. We found out similar problems from dementias, such as listed here.
And this photo shows an example of Left Behind in appliances. Rice cooker and microwave oven, so we developed some devices which may solve these problems. And this shows something left behind after you warm it up in the microwave oven. This function may easily add to cause a commercial product. The second one is advising us which one when someone is at the front door.
You watch TV instead in such a time. The others can stop talking by a switch.
Unfortunately, in this first case, she moved to institutional care before this development. However, the next case had a chance to use this. This works quite good in this case. She went back when she heard. She started using this two months when her husband stayed in the hospital. She also needed institutional care. After she came back home, she remembers the voice. At some point to improve it listed by her husband, so we’re developing the next version following his advice.

This is not for dementia but for brain damaged lady.
When she left the toilet without flushing it. In this case she just liked to hear her mother’s voice as advice. So we choose her voice but she also dislike it. We are going to develop a similar device like this. It tells something going back, and the sensor can detect hydrogen sulphite called H2S, ammonia from foods. The battery is too short to use, so I’m redesigning.
In Japan comfortable elderlies died by heat stroke in hot and humid summer. Elderlies tend not to use air conditioner when the climate goes bad. And dementias tend to unplug the appliances when he was in, such as air conditioner or network appliances. And we found out these points in the interview. In this, number 6, continuity of accustomed appliances or interface is important for elderlies. And number 7, take a look at small retail shops of electric appliances is needed for single resident.
And this is discussion and it’s effective to cognitive impaired. That never orders something but just tells the situation and then support decision making for them. And both contents should be considered for effective device.
A real voice or synthesized voice. Somebody disliked to hear the voice and felt as disgusting or scolding. And this survey continues by supportive.
Thank you for your attention.

>> Thank you so much. It was very interesting presentation. Are there any questions?

No?

>> Not a question, but a comment that almost all examples you showed are lovely. So I have children who are 6 and 8 and they could all use a reminder of the flushing, that they forgot something in the microwave. I forget what else you said, but very universal solutions. I thought they were lovely, not obviously for anybody with dementia or anything else.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Is it possible to buy in a store today?
>> No. Not yet.
>> Is any of it possible to buy?
>> I think so. I hope so.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you for the presentation. In Finland we have the same, and especially the Alzheimer’s, that’s a very serious condition because the brain needs exercise. So, so far those presenters have been assisting, but I think you have a very important point that you just announce what has happened and then you support the brain rehearsal to make the right decision, correct?
>> Yes
>> Because I think that is the way to continue, especially with Alzheimer’s.
>> Thank you.

>> Thank you for a very interesting lecture. You say that you cannot buy these appliances today, but are you working with the industry to have these facilities into mainstream products?
>> Yes, I’m a professor in university, but I work for some companies.
>> But does that mean that your goal is to have these specified into mainstream products?
>> Yes, I hope so. But now almost all makers does look at dementia of consumers.

>> Okay. No more questions?
Then thank you so much. We hope that we will see these products in production soon.

[Applause]

>> So welcome to the session, Designing with technology. And I’m happy to introduce the first speaker, Trenton Schulz. He is going to speak about a case study for Universal Design in the Internet of things.
>> Thank you. Yes, thanks for having me. I have really enjoyed the different presentations thus far today. My name is Trenton Schulz and I’m a senior researcher at the Norwegian Computing Center, which is a research institute in Norway and we have our own little E inclusion group that takes a look at Universal Design of information technology. And today I want to talk to you about a case study for Universal Design in the Internet of things.

So the first slide I will start out with is probably something I’m not really going to discuss too much here, because I suspect that most people who are at a Universal Design conference have an idea what Universal Design means. Although I did know there was a session that was discussing the different definitions, but I guess what I really wanted to highlight are sort of two aspects that we think about Universal Design when we’re looking at information technologies. And that is one is a process, and basically this is a design process or an approach that you use to building what the other aspect is, which is you could say the result or the goal of your design, and that is that it’s possible that it can be used by as many people as possible.
So there are lots of things that one can do when one is trying to make sure that something is Universal Design. I think especially when we’re looking at ICT we look a lot at guidelines to sort of help us out with this, and like the web content accessibility guidelines. And one thing that most people are in agreement on, using these guidelines are necessary to make sure that something is universally designed or accessibility to everyone, but they’re not sufficient. You need something else. This design process needs to be sort of a holistic process and you need to sort of involve users somehow, and you need to have — there are different techniques one can use. The one I want to talk to you about today is something that many of you might know. It’s called user centered design. Now, user centered design actually has a standard that you can use. It’s called the ISO9241210. I’m sure everyone knows that ISO standard, right? I wrote it down just so I could remember.
Anyway, there are four distinct parts to user centered design if you follow the standard. So those parts are — I’ll just do a quick review. The first thing you need to do is sort of understand and specify the context where you expect your solution is going to be used. And the second set thing that you need to do is once you sort of understand this context where people are using — will be using this solution, you need to sort of specify the user requirements. And basically figure out what users need to do, what they’re required to do for this. Then you, of course, actually design the solutions that could be used and, of course, the important part here is also that you evaluate the solutions. Now, the key thing to also remember here is that you aren’t going to be doing this just once. You probably will be doing this several times, and you might see that when you’re doing this process, you might actually need to repeat some place in here and redo things. So you might find out like, oh, we totally didn’t understand this different part of the context or something and you will need to do something with that. Or that, like, oh, we missed the requirement. Or hopefully you might be in some things where there might be tweaking we need to do with the design to make it kind of work.
So the key thing to remember is there’s some sort of iterative approach. You rarely do this in one go.
So what I’m going to talk about today is mapping Universal Design, sort of the Universal Design process on to the user centered design process. And before I do that, I kind of would like to give it a context, because talking about the way, but I want to be somewhat entertaining.
This is the case we applied the subject in. It’s based on an EU project called I trust it.
And — U trust it. And users trust in the Internet of things. And basically you might ask what the Internet of things is. How many people are familiar with the Internet of things?
There’s more. I’m happy. Every time I’ve given a talk about this, more people have raised their hands. It must mean that it’s coming.
Or we’re all running away from it.

So here is a very simple scenario to kind of think about. You can think about at home you might have, let’s say, a desktop machine, a laptop, maybe a Smart Phone, tablets now, and they’re probably communicating, sharing information locally in your home.
But usually — you can start thinking of this about an Internet of things, but usually when people think about the Internet of things, they think about objects that we normally don’t think of that are connected to the Internet and everybody’s favorite objects to talk about when they start talking about the Internet or Internet of things or especially smart home, refrigerators and washing machines, not necessarily that people want these, but this is what people talk about. You can say that, okay, you might be able to control your washing machine. You might be able to get what inventory of food you need and things like that, to help you make healthier choices, run the washing machine when there’s low power and so on and so forth. But usually what will probably be happening here is that these devices are probably going to be talking to the Internet, and exchanging it with various different service providers. And we might think about this in a generic sense, but they could be talking to different companies and they could be talking to your insurance company to find out what sort of food you’re eating or if you’re going and making unsafe choices. Or it could be talking to various other institutes or organizations that it might be okay that they know some of this information, but maybe it’s not specifically about you. So what we were looking at in U Trust It is how does the user perceive trusting in these devices. There’s an interesting workshop going on in parallel about this, about smart user data, so if I wasn’t giving this presentation now I definitely would be there trying to find other things about it, because one difficult thing was getting a good idea of what “trust” was in the situation. So I just thought, before I go further I would try to say that trust here was basically a definition that we agreed on to be a user’s confidence in entities’ reliability, including acceptance of vulnerability in a potentially risky situation.
Basically, if you want to boil it down, it’s like somebody has to be sort of vulnerable and be willing to trust a technology with their information or something.
Anyway, the key thing that you might have noticed here is I used a bunch of pictures and that’s because we needed to build our own prototypes to simulate these trust situations. So we created sort of prototypes that would be working — we needed to create prototypes that would be working in Smart Home scenarios, Smart Office scenarios and we created an E-voting scenario. But one thing we set up at the beginning of the project was that the prototypes showed work for people with disabilities, or rather must work for people with disabilities, because if we think about it, if we’re going to be in this — in these Smart Homes and everything and if they’re supposed to be helping everyone, we’re going to need to make sure this information is accessible to people with disabilities because they’re going to need to use these objects too. So make sure that these objects work for everyone.

In order to help with that, we had — when we were designing the project we took contact with several different organizations to see if they would be willing to help us out with this, and we got help from two organizations in Norway for doing this. One is Dyslexia Nordia, which is the dyslexia organization in Norway and the other is the association for blind and visually impaired in Norway. So they were willing to help recruit people that would be testing out different things in the project.
So sort of introduce the case here. I’ll try to now map some of the Universal Design thing on to user centered design. There’s one other concept that I’ll bring up briefly here that I’ve sort of introduced here. It’s probably been used in other places, but we just decided to call this concept the Accessibility Champion. And this is based on some other work from another group that basically was a usability champion. And we’ve extended that idea here. And the idea of a usability champion is somebody that would be involved in your work that would basically try to be an advocate for usability during the project.
And so what we are doing here is we had our group in Norway be sort of the accessibility champions for the project to make sure that accessibility or Universal Design was not left out while we were working on things.
So I will try to highlight points where the accessibility champion did different things, although there was more than one accessibility champion.

So if we hop back to the different parts from user centered design, the first one is to understand and specify the user context or specify the context. And especially the thing that we needed to do there was sort of get people to understand the Internet of things and different contexts where they could be used or since this Internet of things didn’t quite exist at the time. So what we were doing — what we did during the project is that we recruited people and we held some focus groups and we started introducing them to the Internet of things, had them start thinking about what sort of devices could actually exist in the Internet of things and how the certain solutions could work for people in the Internet of things. So we did that for the whole project, specifically for dealing with accessibility, the accessibility champion recruited people in the focus groups for dyslexia and vision impairment and we held two focus groups for people with vision impairment and one for dyslexia and basically we went over the different scenarios, talked about how these things would work for people with vision impairment, for example, or dyslexia. The thing that was really interesting, for example, for people who had vision impairment was that in general they were very positive to all this new technology because in general they felt it was a better chance for them to be a bit more independent and they really liked the ability to actually provide input into how technology could be used.
So after we had gathered all this information and sort of figured out what sort of scenarios we could start working with in the project, we worked with step 2, which was specifying user requirements. And so we did this in two separate ways. One thing was we used a technique that has been talked about previously yesterday, which was this idea of personas. Personas or sort of these stereotypical users. They don’t actually exist but they’re sort of a composite of different types of users. So this is just an example here of some notes that we had collected from sort of a persona workshop and some skeletons that you could say of these personas. And these are a couple of the different — or these are the five personas that we created. Part of the work that was done by the accessibility champion was to sort of round out a couple of the different personas to have some different disabilities. So, for example, we had Anna up here who had about 20% vision. We also had Frederick down here who had dyslexia, but he was one of these people that was very tech heavy or he really loved technology and was about trying to find other ways of making it work without really reading the directions. We also had Paul here, who was starting to have some dementia. So some of the scenarios started working around how do we make sure that Paul is safe and things can work with him, and, for example, this was his son here was actually — he really didn’t like technology but he was kind of forced to work with it because he was dealing with Paul’s oncoming dementia. So those were most of the different ones. And then Sarah here was — I guess would be closer to the — did not have any physical disabilities but was also very quick and just wanted to get things done, so really didn’t bother with reading many things.
And the point here was part of the work that was done with the accessibility champion was making sure that the information for the different personas was correct, also updating people about what sort of technology these people would actually use so that they would have an idea of how the assistive technology would need to interact with them. Then we created some scenarios that would be used for these different situations. So here was an example of this medical cabinet that held medicine that could only be used at certain times, and how would you make sure that Paul had actually taken the medicine, things like that.
So after we had done all this work defining the requirements, having the personas, we even kept the personas around for the entire project. They would send stories out periodically to people to explain what was going on. Then it was time to produce some design solutions. And so I have a couple of pictures here where we’re sort of working on these different solutions. And part of the work that was done here by the accessibility champions was trying to make sure that the user interfaces that are shown on this screen, they’re not important, that you actually see what they really are, that there was nothing wrong with them working with, like, for example, a screen reader or things like that. Also — well, here is an example with some of the different technology that we were using, so this was, again, sort of looking at the medical cabinet and trying to, yeah — basically this was looking at the early, early prototypes and sort of the way the technology was going to be interacting with the different devices. And then here is some unknown person trying to test out some — another version of the medical cabinet, but what persons are actually trying to do here is work with an early version of the Talk Back screen reader, which had an interesting way of interacting with the screen. I don’t really need to talk too much about it. You can certainly ask me afterwards and I’ll go into great detail if you really want, but part of what was going on during this point was the — we had a hardware partner that was going to be building most of these prototypes and they needed to figure out what sort of hardware they needed to use and we also needed to figure out, okay, what sort of software is going to run on that device and, okay, what sort of assistive technology could be used, how is that assistive technology going to work out? One of the things that were interesting here was the choice of using Android and how well that was going to work with screen readers, especially the screen reader was available at the beginning of the project. As time went on in the project, the progress on that went much better, so I would say that — well, I will talk a little more in the evaluations perhaps, but it got much better and it was actually possible to actually do part 3 here with a Talk Back screen reader and that was actually evaluated against the user requirements.
So, of course, we had — we ran several user tests and we ran them actually in several different countries. We had — since we had partners in Germany, in Austria and in Norway, and we actually ran the accessibility tests all in Norway. So we had one — we did two rounds of this, of the testing. In the first round we wanted to make sure we actually had a version that we could test out, sort of ahead of time before the prototypes were done. What we did then was actually did the evaluation in virtual reality. So this picture is actually somebody trying to navigate in virtual reality. The 3D effect is kind of lost on this picture. You will just have to take my word for it. And besides, you can’t see it in the camera. You would have to see it through the person’s glasses. Of course, this is a problem if you have a visual impairment because the 3D effect and various other issues are not going to work for you. What we did for that instead is recruited primarily for dyslexia in this case and then took their feedback as far as the user interface was designed as far as the amount of text that needs to be there and the complexity of the text. So we did not — in the virtual reality thing we did not work with, like, Talk Back for that. But once we had that done and when we were still working on making sure the assistive technology was going to be good enough, we finally were able to produce the final prototypes. So this is an example of the medicine cabinet prototype here being used. And then this was — this also had the technology working with Talk Back and everything like that.
I have a very short video here that kind of covers the usability testing in Norway — or rather accessibility testing. This one was actually done by the people at the newspaper in Norway, so they were interested in Smart Homes. This is going to be a Smart Home reporting slant. The video is in Norwegian. I have subtitled it. I hope the subtitles are big enough for you to read. I am not going to do a live audio description. I apologize for people who are visually impaired and do not know Norwegian.
All that being said…

[ video playing ]

>> So the key thing there was — let me just double check.
Basically…
Yeah, that was kind of the final test we had done there. And, again, that was kind of talking about the positive use of Smart Homes and the Internet of things would be used as part of that. And then basically once we had taken all the — we had had all the evaluations, we kind of coded everything up using an open coding process and we used that to help figure out what sort of accessibility issues would be necessary and sent those on as feedback to the people. And you could — well, I will dip into that a little bit in the findings.
I’m going to quickly discuss the findings and give recommendations at the end.
So using sort of this user centered design and incorporating Universal Design into the whole process, the thing that was really interesting there it was really — it was possible to see all the places where user centered design or Universal Design was needed in each step. So we knew, like, okay, in this step we need to sort of figure out the context. Okay, how are we going to involve people with disabilities or get their opinions in? What do we do in the circumstance where we’re designing, how do we make sure that their needs are taken care of? So the thing that was really great was that we could easily see all the places where we actually needed to incorporate it instead of like, oh, well, I guess we do the accessibility stuff at the evaluation stage, which is probably too late to be looking at stuff.
I think the other thing that was interesting was the accessibility champion sort of works well. The thing that helped with is that people in different countries or different partners were able to actually, okay, I know who I need to talk to about accessibility. They knew that somebody was always going to be following this up and wasn’t going to just, like — it wasn’t going to suddenly disappear. Even if it disappeared for, like, a meeting, for example, it was going to get noticed in the meeting minutes or something and when prototypes would show up, somebody would be in charge of looking at these different accessibility issues that were there. I’ll just do a quick question about how accessible the prototypes were.
I mean, like, since it was a research project and we were doing iterations, we found problems for both accessibility and usability in the evaluations. The medicine cabinet actually had an issue that it could not have its software upgraded and it could not work well with a screen reader. So actually when we had some people there — the person in the video, for example, used a magnifying glass, but we had some people that couldn’t use magnifying glasses who actually were blind and those, like we actually would had to — we actually had to kind of sit there and read those things for them because we wanted to see how they were reacting to the trust information.
The other thing I would say, though, is that we found that was actually a usability thing on the accessibility side was just basically how we presented some information. So this is a copy of the UI, a couple of the UI screens for the project. I’ll just quickly go through it. The point was, the key here, information, what was presented first, when people had the screen presented, was the security level. So we actually read what the security level was. We said, security level is one of four or one low of four. And that was great. Because they got to know what sort of the security level was at once. But the thing that was a bit more difficult was then people, when they would try to get to the next things then they would have all this great text here, which is great to know the first time, but eventually once you’re doing activity 5 or 6, like, oh, okay, I know what this text is going to say, really what I want to do is get down to these buttons and either make my decision on continuing or not continuing. And this was something that, like, well, we thought we had it in a nice hierarchy, but we realized, once you’re doing this constantly, this hierarchy is not quite as good. So what we should have probably done is, for example, move this extra textual information after the buttons, for example, or had something — some sort of hint to indicate you could find out more information if you hopped to a different spot, so as to speak.
So these were, like, issues, but the important part was to get the accessibility information up there to that level. Then we could actually find these as real bugs instead of like, oh, I can’t read the screen at all. So we thought that was important.
If we look quickly at what sort of things could be done differently, it would have been great to have included more users with different disabilities. We realized that having people with dyslexia and vision impairment doesn’t cover all possible problems people might have had. We did try to make sure things were multi-modal and people could use them. We had two agencies recruiting and had to use what we had. There are different levels of impairment. In the video somebody was using a magnifying glass. Vision impairment impaired people, half of them used Talk Back and others used other ways, like zooming the screen or using a magnifying glass. You had to be careful in finalizing requirements. This was talking about hardware issues, that the hardware had to be finalize and at some point some hardware could not be upgraded. Then we got into a big problem and were like, but we really need this version and they would be like, no, we can’t. So we got stuck.

So sometimes you have to kind of work a bit with the hardware people to make sure that you can sort of work on some sort of compromise.
And I think the other thing that was important was that including Universal Design from the beginning makes it part of the regular project work, so nobody thought of this as like, oh, this is extra work. They just thought, this is just part of what needs to happen. So every time they would, perhaps, ask the accessibility champion, okay, I’ve done this stuff, could you maybe take a look at it now? And it worked quite well for that. Some quick recommendations before finishing.
The first is sort of determined level of user involvement when defining the project. So this is when we sort of got in contact with these different user organizations to see which would be willing to help us out during the project. So this is kind of important to determine how you want to run the project, how are you going to sort of make sure that participants can participate, make allowances for them, if they need payment, how do you do that.
Second have an accessibility champion. At least having somebody there who is constantly thinking about accessibility and making sure it doesn’t disappear is very important and it makes the work better and easier, I think overall.
And then finally — or be aware of the complexity of assistive technology and realize you have to sort of know how this assistive technology works. You need to be aware of where the shortcomings are and how to make it work, I guess. Sorry. And then finally, perform user evaluations, including people with disabilities. It doesn’t matter how well someone like me, for example, knows how Talk Back works and that I should write alternative text here or descriptive information. At some point you need to have someone who actually has — like this is the only way they can interact with the device take a look at that and give better feedback and say that, yes, this actually works. You would never take a fully done design for a website, for example, and say, yeah, well, I designed it myself, I know my colors and everything, yeah, no need to user test it.
So in goes the same for accessibility. And that’s it for me.
Thank you.

[Applause]

>> Thank you so much. Very, very interesting, I think. I guess there will be some questions for you in the audience.

>> Hi, so a very cool project. Do you find at any point that the feedback that you got from people with disabilities that ended up just making the design overall better, not just more accessibility, but better for everybody?
>> Yes, yes, I actually forgot to mention that. I think actually one thing was actually this bar at the top, which I think if you didn’t — if you would have countered it in your first scene of the thing, it was more — many sighted users thought those were buttons, so the first thing they would start to do is, oh, I don’t want this to be level one. I want this to be level four, or vice versa. No reason for super-security, so they would start pressing on these buttons. They looked like buttons to this person’s mind. And the thing was, when you used the assistive technology, it read it as saying, security level is this of this. So it actually presented the information a bit better. And I think that was — I mean, that was interesting in that, like, nobody who used Talk Back got caught up by that. And they never thought in their mind that, like, oh, this UI is only — or they were like, this UI is providing information to me, so I know what is going on. Whereas others thought, oh, this is providing me a way to configure my — you know, what is going on here. And they would think of using it that way. At least in that sense, yes. Color contrast, I didn’t go into it much here. It’s more in the paper. Some of the things were color contrast was definitely affected by how we did stuff here, size of text. Yeah, I think several things that we found made the overall design. I didn’t show the final UIshere. They were — yeah, they were completed for the project but never actually implemented, so we didn’t get to see those in real life.
>> More questions?

>> So I would like to know if you — how many users did you have involved in the evaluation? And also, did you have like multiple cycles with them for the requirements and the evaluation?

>> Yes. This is described a little more in the paper, of course. We did two iterations through the whole project, so we had two sort of evaluation iterations. I think — when we did the focus groups, I don’t think anyone in focus groups were necessarily involved in the final evaluations. No, probably one or two, because they were held a couple years earlier, and then the evaluations happened. For the evaluations, for the accessibility evaluation specifically, there were about — I think there were 12 or 13 for the VR evaluations. And for the evaluations, the real world evaluations you could say, there were about 22. Total there were about 99 for the — if we include the other countries. But they were, again, primarily targeting standard users. I don’t really like to use that word.
People who didn’t necessarily, like, have a disability that was the main reason they were in there for evaluating.
So something like that. But I think the numbers are more — I’m pretty sure I put the numbers in the final thing.

>> Anyone else?

>> Thank you for a great presentation. Actually, I think my questions have been answered, so I had to find another one, but I think — I do have one, actually. Because I think that you’re doing comparative studies, something I do myself, and I find it really difficult making these cross-cultural comparisons, so maybe you could elaborate a little bit about that. And I enjoyed seeing 99 people, but, I mean, if all the other countries have their different disabilities, what is the use, actually, to be honest? That’s a question I ask myself as well. So it’s not a criticism.
>> Yeah. How could I say — I don’t have all the stats in front of me. I mean, in general, most — it was a pretty — what we tried to do is get a pretty good mix of people in the different countries. So we tried to get sort of different education levels and things like that. And we tried to make sure that, for example, that no country had just students, for example. So there was a pretty wide age range for all the participants. The thing that we wanted to — that we actually wanted to enforce here, which was kind of this — we actually had to fight it a little bit in study design, was this idea, well, should we, like, exclude the people, you know, the accessibility ones, right? Because they have disabilities, right? So we should actually exclude them from the data set. And we thought, no, the whole point is to show this is a universally designed system, so really the person’s disability should not be a deciding factor in this. So actually we argued that, like, we shouldn’t have a variable that is actually describing the person’s disability. Because we felt that it was better to kind of see overall how that worked.
I would say that there were still some — still some fighting over that, but at least we got that through in the thing. But overall I think also the fact that we had people from Germany, Austria, and Norway, yes, there are cultural differences and I think we could say, for example, in Norway there was a much bigger sort of cultural thing to sort of trust things more than, like, you would find in Germany, at least according to the data we got. But overall, like the thing that was interesting was that, like, the user interface — people liked the user interface, or they understood what was going on and in that — that seemed to be standard throughout. So we felt that that was kind of something nice to get from that.

>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.

[Applause]