Adaptive Environments Receives NEA's 2008 Leadership in Universal Design Award
News from Adaptive Environments
International Web-Based Universal Design Case Study Collection
We are delighted to announce that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Office for AccessAbility has awarded their 2008 Leadership in Universal Design award to Adaptive Environments. This award will allow us to embark on our plan to create an international web-based universal design case study collection.
We are deeply appreciative of the endorsement of the NEA AccessAbility 2008 review panel. We also thank and acknowledge AccessAbility Director Paula Terry for her unwavering commitment to universal design. She plays a unique ‘godmother’ role in the movement.
We are at a stage of development of the international universal design movement in which we are poised to reach a tipping point. We have an increasingly sophisticated conceptual understanding, solid precedents in a variety of sectors and a growing global interest in pursuing universal design. The new UN Treaty on the Human Rights of People with Disabilities offers an ideal policy framework for igniting attention and action.
The growing audience needs quick and easy access to state-of-the-art case studies that illustrate good examples for a diverse audience of advocates, clients, designers and builders. We will mount a web-based international collection of case studies of universal design in the built environment that detail actual projects. The case study will include narrative descriptions, evaluations, photos, images and information for the team that designed and built the project. The categories are health, outdoor places, transport, commercial, culture, education, housing, public buildings and historic preservation. With the case studies available anywhere anytime, someone planning to build a new school or health center or to renovate an historic cultural facility would readily access information about inclusively designed precedents. The case study website will be fully accessible.
An initial set of case studies in each of the nine categories will be created within the twelve months of Phase I of what will be an ongoing web resource. Those initial case studies will be a mix of examples from developed and developing nations culled from projects presented at the five international universal design conferences we have hosted or co-hosted since 1998 as well as projects identified through our network and the international case study jury. The world-class jury of leaders in universal design is in place. Their first roles are to offer their recommendations for case studies and to vet the initial set. In Phase II, case studies will be solicited globally through our extensive databases of people and organizations and through a network of collaborating organizations. The international jury will review and approve or decline case study submittals.
We intend the website to be an ongoing resource and, contingent upon funding, plan that it will be multi-lingual.
Director of Design Barbara Knecht, RA, is Project Director.
