UNIDESIGN · Universalism, universal design and equitable access to the designed environment

The proposed research examines the proposition that the values and attitudes embedded into the production of the designed environment display little or no knowledge of how to respond to the manifold complexities of the body. This will be explored through the context of disability and design, with the focus on assessing the relevance of the principles and practices of one of the foremost, contemporary, design movements, Universal Design (UD), and how it addresses the problems of/for impaired bodies in interacting with the designed environment. UD principles state that the design of products and environments ought to ‘be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design’ (Mace, 1988: 1). UD is an increasingly important feature of nations seeking to develop a fairer society for people unable to use, with ease, the designed environment. The project will scrutinize the underlying assumptions about design and embodiment shaping the content of UD, what UD is, as a sociopolitical phenomenon, its interpenetration into, and across, different scales and sectors of society, and, how far it enables autonomy of human-environment interactions by (re) creating artefacts sensitized to the (disabled) body. In doing so, the research will redress key lacunae by investigating how far UD principles and practices are shaping approaches to the crafting of designed environments, how such practices are governed and shaped by diverse actors, and, how far the differentiated bodily needs of disabled people may be met by the programmes and policies of UD. The project is divided into two parts: (i). Documenting the transnational/governance networks shaping UD discourse; (ii). A comparative study of the socio- institutionalization of UD, including its development and implementation in practice, in three European countries, Norway, Ireland, and the UK.