To be able to access and use the built environment is a fundamental part of human
rights.
All people are affected by the design of the built environment in diverse ways. It
concerns health and well-being, and our opportunities to participate in society.
This doctoral thesis explores how one can achieve more equal and inclusive living
environments by using Universal Design (UD) to consider human diversity in all
stages of planning and construction. This thesis examines the relationship between
the built environment and the users’ abilities, where there is often a gap, one that we
frequently talk about in terms of inaccessibility. This gap is a common reason why
people are excluded from the built environment and participation in society.
People are excluded from the built environment despite the laws, regulations, and
conventions stating that what is built must also be accessible and usable for people
with reduced mobility or orientation. This ongoing exclusion of persons with
disabilities does not result from a lack of knowledge on how to remedy existing
obstacles and how to avoid creating new ones. Other reasons must be found.
There is a need to increase knowledge on how to implement UD and accessibility.
This should be done not only on the detailed level, but along the entire process from
vision to outcome, including the connections between different scales: the building
or place, the city level, and the societal level.
The aim of the thesis is to provide new knowledge and solutions on how UD can be
implemented in urban development and in the built environment. The findings
increase knowledge on how practices can be changed through UD by taking human
diversity more into account when buildings and places are planned and constructed.
The theoretical framework involves different phenomena related to the external
conditions that affect the planning and construction processes of today: forms of
governance, the view of the users of the built environment and how they are
categorised, choices and priorities in the planning process, and theories of UD.
Triangulation was used in the studies as a research strategy, to test the validity and
increase the reliability of the findings, The consistency of the findings was crosschecked using different methods and data sources: document study (Study 1);
multiple case study, interviews, and workshops (Study 2); and go-along interviews
in three different cities (Study 3). The participants in Studies 2 and 3 included
officials in the cities involved, professional groups linked to the construction
industry, and citizens.
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The thesis is based on research conducted in three studies, which resulted in in five
papers. The findings show a picture of numerous factors that influence the
conditions for how human diversity is included or not in urban development
processes. The reasons why inaccessibility and exclusion of people with disabilities
occur in the built environment can be searched for in the norms and categorisations
of the users, and in current urban building trends and planning practices. Thought
patterns in the image of the users, which are visible early in the process, are drivers
behind exclusion and separate solutions for some user groups, such as persons with
disabilities and older persons. Urban planning trends, such as densification, are
phenomena that can have negative effects on the implementation of UD in both the
processes and the built environment. This involves the reduction of open spaces and
green areas, increased noise, lack of daylight, restrictions on modes of transports
and more. Complex environments, from a human diversity point of view, are found
in mixed-use ideals like ‘shared space’. Furthermore, examples came to the fore of
how the imbalance between sustainability dimensions resulted in unrealistically
high demands on users’ abilities.
Another picture emerges from examples of how and under what circumstances
Universal Design can be supported and implemented through the process and the
outcome. It became clear in Study 2 that the presence of UD was more evident in
the reconstruction of older buildings than in newly constructed ones. The successes
of the remodelling projects can be sought in the focus of the projects (updating a
building to today’s values, increasing the number of users, removing barriers, etc.)
and the role of the developer. In contrast to the new building projects, the city was
the owner and project manager, with completely different values on which the
projects were based, and the ability not to limit its motives for the sake of financial
profit.
Some clear patterns emerged when examining the details in the built environment.
Two very successful strategies that supported UD and equal use were 1) to place
low demands on users’ abilities, to avoid special solutions and the separation of
users, and 2) to shift the focus from person to function. As an outcome of the
findings, ten qualities and features are presented as critical factors to handle in the
built environment on a city level.
The findings show the need for several changes. This applies, for example, to the
view of the user of the built environment. What drives inequality is an unrealistic
and normative image of the users’ abilities, and a lack of understanding of disability
as a part of the human condition. All studies demonstrate the importance of
protecting significant societal goals throughout the planning and construction
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processes. This indicates that the public actors must take greater responsibility to
lead planning processes and follow up on the results.
The municipalities are at the forefront of defending social goals and operationalising
conventions that Sweden as a nation has undertaken to follow, an example being the
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The capacity among
professionals to shape a built environment on equal conditions can and should be
strengthened. Awareness of the consequences for different users, and the long-term
costs of planning paradigms such as densification and concepts such as shared
space, must increase.
The findings also show how UD needs to be implemented in the entire process –
from idea to finished construction – and on a coherent scale, from overarching goals
to detailed design, in harmony with the surrounding environment and the overall
societal goals.
The complete thesis can be found at this link.
