Innovation for Universal Design Solutions

Purpose and goal

Our public places belong to everyone, everyone should be able to access them in the same term. That´s not it today. The purpose of this project was to show that it is possible to think differently, that a user-oriented design process can create beautiful, interesting and innovative places that work for more, in the same term. By allowing four designers to collaborate with four people with different functional variations, in the project called "experts", four new visions for public places have been developed.

Expected results and effects

The result of the project consists of four design solutions, based on other needs than the usual ones. A social and more including staircase, an accessible square, a sculpture that facilitates orientation and a bench that includes people in wheelchairs and electric wheelchairs has been developed in close collaboration between designers and experts. The process has been documented through film and the results were presented during a seminar with close to a hundred people in the audience. There are great opportunities to further develop the project in collaboration with others.

Planned approach and implementation

Two meetings took place. During the first meeting, experts and designers were paired together, given the opportunity to get to know each other and discuss which place or object they wanted to work with. Several of them visited the place together. Afterwards, the designer had one month to create a first draft. During this time they stayed in touch through email or social media. One month later, they met do discuss the draft. Many interesting conversations took place during these physical meetings. They were not just about the place, it was just as important to talk about everyday life.

External links

Projektet filmades. I denna film presenteras projektet, deltagarna och processen presenteras. Av: Bullfinch Film