IN-PERSON London. Section A

Abstract

The aftermath of WWII increased the number of people with disabilities. It also led to an inquiry into society’s view on disabilities and how to adjust the built environment, dismantling the cultural closet. During the 1970s, a new design criterion started to influence architectural design and physical planning: accessible or inclusive design. The first decades of the new millennium saw the EU putting efforts into converting the diverse types of public built space in the member states into becoming useable by older people and persons with disabilities. The pandemic 2020-2022 proved the home environment to be claustrophobic for most Europeans in terms of confinement and working at home. The present study presents a Swedish study on the concept of accessibility as a design criterion for future-oriented dwellings of the 2030s. Some 125 respondents, identified as national experts, were approached with a questionnaire on a potential update of the concept, often used in European building legislation. The response rate was low, about 15 %, covering seven European countries, Canada and Japan. The general view was that premises like ICT, working at home, or confined to the home environment had had little effect on contemporaneous accessible design. The technical approach for addressing accessibility in architectural design would continue, since housing depends on financial planning. Seen in an architectural perspective, the study suggested that the functionalistic ideal for the home as measurable entity, shaped around traceable needs of Le Corbusier’s modulor lives on. In contrast, the respondents forwarded the twin concept of accessibility, i.e., usability introduced in 2008 through the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities, as a tool for adjusting the home environment to individual needs. This would be the challenge for the future to conceive truly innovative dwellings that promoted an improved fit between the user and the design of the habitat.