Design for All: Strategy to support Designers and Policy makers to achieve inclusive and healthier places

Issue/problem: Health refers to an individual and collective status, strongly influenced by the environmental context. Different factors as the aging of the population and its multi-ethnic composition are prompting to the design of cities, public spaces, work places, public transport, services, which allow people to live a longer, more flexible and a more satisfying life. As builders of the urban environment, designers are challenged to bridge these gaps of complexity. How is therefore possible creating spaces that all people can use independently where society diversity becomes the driver for inclusion and health? Description of the problem: In line with this, Design for All (DfA) is considered a fundamental and innovative strategy for designing inclusive spaces for a diversity of people’s needs and wishes. DfA has been defined as design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality, which aims at usability and comfort for as many people as possible, regardless of age, ability or circumstance. The theoretical principles of DfA have been successfully developed in the scientific community. However, they do not yet correspond to a practical application in the built environment for improving people’s health and quality of life.Results: Support tools and strategies to inspire stakeholders in the application of DfA strategies into practice will be discussed. Information will be provided by following a descriptive and performance based approach. This means allowing architects to understand and reflect on the users’ needs, problems and wishes in specific circumstance for the development of creative and efficient solutions in their project. The context of investigation will include both the urban space and the indoor space of public buildings, especially in situations where a plurality of users’ needs are involved. Lessons: Improving quality and comfort of spaces addressed to a wide diversity of users will represent a fundamental value for inclusive projects’ development.