The interaction of a person with an environment can contribute to well being and stimulate a user or intensify the experience of a disability. This should be taken into account when designing any environment. ‘Inclusive design’ will be recognised in law with the implementation of Lifetime Homes in 2011 which will apply to all public sector housing. This study aims to solve the problem of poorly designed environments by ensuring users that their design meets the legal requirements of Lifetime Homes. The proposed research product is a piece of software which works with existing benchmark Computer Aided Design (CAD) software by checking, documenting and providing feedback on the design in comparison to guidelines and regulations. The clients of such a tool are the architects of schemes who want a simple and effective method of ensuring that they meet new and unfamiliar planning policies that are applicable to all public housing.

Introduction

This research builds on the findings of the seed grant, “Designing better homes for the ageing population in Northern Ireland”, carried out by Dr. Karim Hadjri, and funded by the Changing Ageing Partnership (CAP). This study revealed that further research is needed to improve housing designs of the existing housing stock, and the level of comfort sought by the users (Hadjri, 2008).

Aims

The aims of this research are primarily to further the design of housing for the ageing population, and to further architectural practice and the design process.

These aims are augmented by several types of research, it is recognised that design and comfort levels in public housing for the aged in the UK are poor (Hadjri, 2008). The design principles which proclaim to solve this are referred to as ‘inclusive design’ or ‘design for all’. The benefits of inclusive design are being recognised by the government, architects and housing associations. Much of the current research deals with guidelines and audit tools but there is no research which deals with the actual design process and why errors occur in the first instance.

Architects have increasing levels of legal requirements, regulations and guidelines to adhere to and administer, which can have a detrimental effect on the design process. Research shows that some of the reasons that attribute to the inadequate design of housing were due to the architectural design process and the need to adhere to regulations and client pressures (Hadjri, 2008).

Factors that brought about this study are population ageing, increasing levels of mental illness – which are occurring at a younger age - and people are faced with increasing costs to move home. Therefore, the research aims to improve the design so that tenants can remain in their own home even as their circumstances change.

Method

The methodology we are using is not a staged one but reciprocal with new work and conclusions feeding back-and-forth ensuring that the final product is as up-to-date as possible. The stages include a literature review that focused on inclusive design and then architectural software. The empirical data will be gathered from questionnaires and interviews with experts regarding architects and the use of software. After the initial conclusion the subsequent stages will deal with the design of a solution; including design, testing and implementation and development.

Outcomes

The following discourse reveals some key results from the inclusive review in regard to inclusive design. One way to define what an inclusive design signifies in the built environment is to explain what an ‘inclusive environment’ aims to achieve:

• The environment is easily used by as many people as possible without undue effort, special treatment or separation.
• The environment is able to offer people the freedom to choose how they access and how they use it, allowing them to participate equally in all the activities it may host.
• The environment is able to embrace diversity and difference and is legible, predictable and of high quality.
• The environment caters for flexibility in use and provides buildings and environments that are safe, convenient, equitable and enjoyable to use by everyone, regardless of ability, age or gender (Langton-Lockton, 2004).

Further research found that the UK government is spending over £8m implementing the inclusive design regulations Lifetime Homes. The government will enforce Lifetime Homes in 2011 which will apply to all public sector housing and by 2013 it will apply to all private sector dwellings, demonstrating the commitment to furthering inclusive design by policy makers (Department for Communities and Local Government, Department of Health, & Department for Work and Pensions, 2008).

An important aspect that the sustainability and inclusive design agendas have encouraged is that clients, contractors and the design team take a longer-term view of the built environment. The industry as a whole is invited to consider the principles of inclusive design which lead to the realisation that capital cost is small in relation to whole life cost (Sullivan, 2000).

According to Hogan (2007), one of the reasons that architects and designers are only addressing inclusivity now is because they have not been previously asked to work on this; often those who commission the design of the urban environment, the building, or the interior design often do not understand the potential of such design principles. In addition it is also the designer who does not employ the right training and attitudes to create a suitable design representing architectural principles embodying inclusive design.

Audits and appraisals are lauded to be the single most important tools for improving the built environment over the next decade providing a means and a scientific method on the affordances of a design. Audits are capable of examining existing and proposed buildings and can evaluate the built environment in concordance with the needs of people with every type of disability (Van Rooyen, 2006).

Sullivan (2000) states that the earlier in the design process designers and clients realise the issues of inclusivity, “the greater likelihood of ‘joined up thinking’ and the identification of focused and imaginative solutions” (Sullivan, 2000, pp. 20-21).

The conclusions that these paragraphs elude to is that inclusion in design needs to be acknowledged by all in the construction industry and that as architectural parameters shift, the paradigm of inclusivity is key to the success and enjoyment of the built environment for all members of the community.

The second literature review focused on the computer-based aspect of the research. The following are some details the review revealed on how architectural computing affects the design process.

A large fraction of the total cost of the building is embodied in the decision making and information management process due to the structure of the building industry and the numerous people and companies involved (Papamichael, 1994). When the consequences of a decision are “invisible”, little extra effort or resources will be spent on fine-tuning or optimising that decision (Papamichael, 1994).

New software tools could greatly facilitate and streamline the design process, thereby reducing time and cost, and greatly improving the design and impact of these buildings.

Software programs are making CAD easier to use, integrating more intuitive functions, such as push and pull found in SketchUp, and are illuminating the once specialist software to the masses (Farin, 2002).

It is understood that the use of CAD has provided benefits such as lower development costs and a shortened, and often more detailed design cycle. More complex benefits of architectural software relate to simulations, analysis and multiple users working on the same drawing. While CAD has been developed to retain data about each object, such as strength and cost for manufacturing purposes products such as Ecotect and IES are developed to evaluate physical and environmental conditions such as light, heat cost and sustainability (Pottmann, 2007).

We will investigate with empirical data the design and software used in architectural practice by distributing an online questionnaire throughout the UK and Ireland. Previous research was used to define the themes and questions for the empirical data collection. The following are questions that this stage of the research aims to address:

• How the design process may differ when designing for an aged client base as opposed to a non-age specific design.
• How the software aided/disrupted this
• Functions designers would like to see implemented
• How legislation and standards are approached
• At what stage of the design process are ‘inclusive principles’ considered
• Which packages are used, how often are they used, and which tools and software are preferred and most importantly how the software is used for decision making.

These aim to quantify how the design process is affected by ICT.

Solution

After evaluating the aims and the collected research further criteria were defined for a solution to aid a designer in the decision making process. These were used to start the ‘design’ of the solution and a conceptual model was developed. This model shows how the project is a piece of software which fits in between the architects design and the base software ensuring that the design meets the needs of the criteria. The initial aims are satisfied by:

• Providing an inclusive design is accomplished by implementing an inclusive design audit at the design stage using the software model, which at this stage has been named ‘the people project’.


• Providing a means of helping people live in their homes longer will be accomplished by choosing a set of design principles that embrace inclusive design and make the provision for people to stay in their homes as their circumstances change. The set of design guidelines which best encompass this approach are the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ‘Lifetime Homes’.


• Providing a way of educating designers is addressed by the theory that as the users self appraise their design they learn what is required and carry that knowledge throughout the process. To augment this further there is a section in each of the criteria providing an example and reason why this criteria is necessary.


• Providing a self appraisal tool within the existing design process is accomplished as the People Project was designed to work within the process so that designers could use it at any stage.


• Providing a means of documenting and certifying the scheme to law will be accomplished by allowing the users to automatically record and document how they have performed the Lifetime Homes criteria.


• Providing a way of streamlining the design process allows the users to check the drawing as they work, therefore increasing the pass rate for this stage of building control


• Providing a scalable and expandable tool. This design can be adapted to suit other specific design principles such as dementia and autism.

Providing a simple and recognisable tool was approached by designing the software around basic functions which has the effect that users will not be using tools foreign to them and that the functionality is user friendly.

Discussion

This research has benefits at several levels. The obvious benefits are for the designer, who will be aided throughout the process, the scheme will reach ‘approval’ at an earlier stage and the process streamlined to save time and money. The building client, the person who pays for the project, will benefit by having an accurate price at an earlier stage.

The benefits will be passed on to the building user as they will get an ‘inclusive design’. The benefits of an inclusive design are that the user is not stressed when using it; therefore the user can function without having to worry about getting lost or not being able to access certain areas. Also, this allows the user to live in their own home for longer and not have to worry about the hassle and expense of moving home. All the factors add to giving the user comfort and a better life through a better designed environment.

Note

This paper has been accepted as a peer-reviewed & refereed full paper for oral presentation at the ICSET 2009: "International Conference on Software Engineering and Technology" to be held in Oslo, Norway, July 29-31, 2009.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the supervisors Dr. Hadjri and Dr Milligan for their continual support, Dr Lynch for her enthusiasm and information, and the people who were interviewed and provided the information necessary for the reports.

Correspondence

Nicholas Humes, Nhumes01@qub.ac.uk

References

Department for Communities and Local Government, Department of Health, & Department for Work and Pensions. (2008). Lifetime homes, lifetime neighbourhoods: A national strategy for housing in an ageing society. London: Department for Communities and Local Government.

Farin, G (Ed.). (2002). Handbook of computer aided geometric design (1 st ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.

Hadjri, K. (2008). Better housing for the ageing population in Northern Ireland. Queen's University Belfast: Institute of Governance, School of Law.

Hogan, P. (1995). Building bridges: designing for elderly people. Access by Design, 67, 14-16.

Langton-Lockton, S. (2004). What is inclusive design? Access by Design, 101, 9-11.

Papamichael, K., Winkelmann, F.C., Buhl, W.F., & Chauvet, H. (1994). New tools for the analysis and design of building envelopes. Paper presented at 6. Thermal performances of the exterior envelopes of buildings, Clearwater Beach, FL ( United States).

Pottmann, H., Brell-Cokcan, S. & Wallner, J. (2007). Discrete surfaces for architectural design . Brentwood, TN: Nashboro Press.

Sullivan, L. (2000). Building study: the National Wildflower Centre. Access by Design, 85, 20-21.

Van Rooyen, J. (1995). Access and the readability of Buildings. Access by Design, 67, 17-19.