The engagement of citizens and other stakeholders in urban regeneration processes is a consequence of the acknowledgement that development of the urban space is more than a task for local administrations alone, but is in fact a broad social phenomenon in which those actors introduce inputs and appropriations to form complex combinations of urban configurations and identities.
As a matter of social justice, the planning of citizen engagement must address the challenges and cultures related to the implementation of participation in an urban governance context, as well as in the universe of stakeholders, including their diversity and specificities. To allow citizens to make full use of their potential as participants and contributors to their territory, the promoters of participatory processes need to be alert to the specificities, requirements and limitations experienced by the various segments of citizens.
In this sense, recognition of specificities and inclusion are not a matter of number of participants, but of balanced diversity, the valuing of specificities and the empowering of corresponding inputs. The social model of disability postulates the notion that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. Those barriers can be architectonic,communicational l or attitudinal, resulting in unequal access to public spaces and services, leading to social exclusion. Involving these actors as protagonists in the discussions on urban regeneration processes is fundamental, given their position as future users, to ensure that the principle of accessibility is upheld. This includes, for example, conditions that facilitate mobility, as well as equal rights to the environmental, social, and economic benefits of solutions that make use of ecosystem services and nature.
This session focuses on debating the inclusion of people with disabilities in participatory and decision making processes, in particular in relation to inclusive urban regeneration utilizing nature-based solutions. Topics may address, but are not limited to: identifying discrimination based on functional diversity, including an intersectional approach; identifying the role of capitalism in the exclusion of people with disabilities from urban spaces; measures to accommodate functional diversity that allow full inclusion in participatory processes; debating the role of inclusive urban spaces in combating the social barriers most often faced by these individuals as “barriers to doing”, “barriers to being” and “barriers to speaking”; inclusive design and planning of public urban spaces.
Urban aging necessitates adequate dwelling and interacting place for elders' daily routine activities; cities need to sustain critical policies to guide and encourage the spatial and social infrastructure in maintaining the place-based advantage. While is clear in the literature that ‘age in place’ is much preferred, resilient living habitat for the prevailing ageing community demands further attention. Urban age-friendly environments based on action frameworks have been identified, Thus, communities necessitate converting their public and personal amenities geared to the ageing residents in accord to stakeholders' needs. The process is often faced with severe spatial-temporal challenges. These critical environment-related experiences often result in an increase in the willingness to ageing-in-place as well as in a sense of wellbeing in elderly inhabitants.
Senior residents ageing in place requires more stable urban services, while the elderly’s place-attachment and identity can be preserved through familiarity and collective attribution; housing environment holds its own physical and social identity based on its main features and constructed by a collective attribution; mainly, each resident use the self-identification of the city―the built environment with its connotative meanings―influences a person’s identity. Person, place, and process evolves into place attachment. The attributes of an age-friendly environment are necessary and needed interventions should be allocated to create more age-friendly community. On one hand, the social relevance dimension places people specific attributes into consideration; on the other hand, the habitat relevance dimension considers spatial attributes to be integrated into a comprehensive assessment. The cohesive interlinkage enables health resilience and foster place-attachment toward an ageing-friendly community. The focus, however, should be placed on the interdisciplinary complementariness in the design of intervention tools applicable to the community and habitat, based on stakeholders’ need, environmental optimization.
People, place and process attributes can easily adapt to multi-criteria assessment in the optimal dwelling provision for ageing-in-place. To accommodate the ageing demographic, urban communities must examine if the dwellings could sufficiently allow for easy interaction and facilitate the livelihood of the ageing residents. Communities often need to retrofit public amenities to be accessible to the ageing residents. However, most retrofitting process need to resolve severe spatial-temporal challenges; urban infrastructure must also come to play. Mobility, security are considered important to ageing-in-place but most of the time they are beyond the range of design team, often relying on the public sector for the retrofit. To assure that the living spaces can adequately support the elderly residents, key attributes contributing to inclusive spatial experience for the ageing-in-place population. This article presents the systemic design thinking and framework within the spatial context for ageing-in-place. The research concludes that: (1) the process should attain health and wellbeing should consider the social condition; (2) design thinking in the planning phase should incorporate the place-based enhancement measures to facilitate the lifestyle of elderly residents, (3) prevailing preference in maintenance of physical space necessitates engagement from multi-stakeholders to improve the friendly ageing-in place experience. Hence the core of this study.
KEYWORDS: Urban ageing; Livability; Place-attachment; Spatial Context; Friendly ageing-in-place dwelling
The right to accessible cities: the vision of people with Down Syndrome in Brazil and Portugal
Autora: Marina Dias de Faria (Universidade de Coimbra - CES/FLUC)
The investigation arises from the urgency of denouncing the academic silence on issues involving the right of people with disabilities (PwD) to cities (Kolotouchkina, Barroso, Sachez, 2022). It is believed that nothing can be discussed about inclusive public spaces without questioning the exclusion of people with the most diverse types of disabilities from such spaces. However, accessibility is far from being a recurring theme in public urbanization policies and in academic debate environments on the subject. In this investigation, the focus is on people with Down Syndrome (DS). When choosing to aim to discuss the desires and perceptions of people with DS about urban accessibility, an even more invisible path is traced. This happens because the few studies that discuss the inclusion of PwD in participatory decision-making processes regarding the feasibility of accessible urban spaces are focused on people with physical disabilities (Holstein; Wiesel; Legacy, 2020). Interviews with 34 people with DS, 18 in Brazil and 16 in Portugal, revealed people full of ideas and willing to interfere to break the silence about accessible cities. Refusing the label that is socially placed on them as eternal children (Faria e Casotti, , the interviewees demonstrated that they understand the centrality of urban spaces in the search for social justice. Narratives showed that people with DS require that the social model of disability be actually put into practice in decisions related to urban accessibility. In other words, it is urgent to problematize barriers – whether architectural or attitudinal – so that the centrality of accessibility difficulties is not based on the bodies and cognitions of PwD. For people with DS, the main issues concern attitudinal barriers and relate to the fact that they are seen by society as “unproductive”. This label is explored in the investigation, highlighting the role of the capitalist system that discards people who do not meet the established standard with regard to production and consumption. Therefore, it is cheaper and more comfortable to keep people with DS away from public spaces. Transmuting rights into favors, these people are increasingly on the sidelines, hidden in private spaces and far from any kind of perspective of inclusion.
References
Faria, Marina; Casotti, Leticia. (2019) ""Welcome to Holland!" People with Down Syndrome as vulnerable consumers". European Journal of Marketing, v. 53, n. 11.
Holstein, Ellen; Wiesel, Ilan; Legacy, Crystal (2020). Mobility justice and accessible public transport networks for people with intellectual disability. Applied Mobilities, v.23.
Kolotouchkina, Olga; Barroso, Carmen; Sachez, Juan. (2022) Smart cities, the digital divide, and people with disabilities. Cities, v.123.
A presente pesquisa foi realizada como financiamento de bolsa de investigação atribuída pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia proveniente do Orçamento de Estado e do orçamento comunitário através do Fundo Social Europeu (FSE) e do Programa Por_Centro.
Introduction
The 'Participation Team' develops its activity in Porto within the scope of the Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Center with the main objective of creating conditions for people with disabilities to live an independent, autonomous and self-determined life. One of the premises for participation is the opportunity to be involved. The lack of opportunities can be multifactorial, but barriers are factors that contribute to reduced social participation in different community services.
The aim of this work was to identify which barriers persons with neuromotor diseases face often for participation in community settings and to encourage all actors in society to become agents of inclusion in their social and professional circles. For this, we developed a project "Eliminar Barreiras_ Mudar Atitudes" funding by the National Institute of Rehabilitation.
Method
First, an online initial survey identified the diversity and which barriers occurs for participate in community settings. Items included information about gender, education level, age, self-classification of functional status (walking ability, hand manipulation, communication), and usual attendance of community services (stores, health services, restaurants, financial services) and the self-identification of barriers to participation (architectural, attitudinal, own barriers, no barriers).
Secondly, a focus group with nine adult persons with cerebral palsy discussed the relevance of the data, reflects on their own experience as customers, employees, or just citizens in the frequency of community settings, providing contributions to the production of videos and written material.
Finally, elements from “Era Uma Vez…” theater group along creative writing group of Cerebral Palsy Association of Porto (APPC) provide the scripts and filmed different typical situations, illustrating the problem faced by persons with disability and suggesting solutions on how to overcome it, especially at the attitudinal level.
Results
Survey
Participated in the survey 57 person (57.9% male) with neuromotor disorders (68.4% cerebral palsy), mean age of 35y0m±14y3m (61,4% have a secondary or higher level of education).
The least frequented services were indoor and outdoor cultural activities, and places of worship. The most frequented service was ‘health services. The need for assistance for participation varied between 33.4% for stores and 54.4% for health services, the service more used independently was stores and other similar commerce. Street stores and restaurants along buses were mostly identified as having architectural barriers. For attitudinal barriers most frequently identified were street stores, cultural activities, and banking or insurance services. Own barriers were frequently identified for the use of public transport.
Awareness material
Written, visual and auditory information discloses procedures was developed to provide relevant legislation and relevant sources of information. The written information was compiled into a practical guide for caring for and promoting the participation of persons with neuromotor diseases. The videos are available through digital platforms namely youtube.com and at APPC Facebook page.
The Guide has been downloaded 1671 times, videos have 2325 visualizations, and more than 900 paper formats were distributed. References about the project are available in Observador, Lusa, other local newspapers and Antena 1 radio.
Conclusion
Providing tools for the community raise their awareness about hindrances and barriers to participation of persons with neuromotor diseases built on through a co-creation process could facilitate the construction of an inclusive society.
PRISMA is a small creative enterprise formed by specialists in communication and heritage management. It extensively, but not exclusively, uses IT to support CHI in their mission.
PRISMA’s philosophy is based on the principle of “ZeroKm”, to re-contextualize objects according to their provenance. Especially for small institutions, making the best out of the (usually tiny) available budget and use slow-obsolescence technology to maximize ROI (Return-On-Investment) is of great importance.
Since CH is an important component of the urban environment, e.g. a museum in small urban centres is “the meeting point” for families and senior citizens, an inclusive approach to heritage is a key part of an inclusive public space.
Communicating the museum in an effective way is the first step to enhance visitors’ experience.
A museum is not only its content, but also the stories it is able to tell: as the London Charter principles state, “Tell only the stories with a sound scientific basis and keep interpretation separate from imagination”.
This dialogue between the museum with its content and the visitor relies in large part on the way the exhibits are presented, illustrated and commented. A gap in the presentation and explanation may put the communication at risk and undermine the visitor’s experience.
PRISMA has undertaken the “Museo4U” project at MuVet (Archaeological Museum of Vetulonia) in Southern Tuscany, owning a rich collection of Etruscan objects, creating solutions for visitors with special needs.
The project offers some “inclusive” multi-sensorial information points about important exhibits. They consist of a stand incorporating: a display, a 3D physical replica of the object, enhanced to improve tactile feedback, a loudspeaker and some control buttons, with commands printed in high-visibility colours and in relief in Braille. A proximity sensor detects when a person is approaching, and starts a voice message informing that there is a nearby multi-sensorial device with information. The same message appears on the screen. The stand has the right height for persons on a wheelchair, or a child, and is conceived to allow easy manipulation. All the functions are commanded by physical buttons, as virtual ones would be uncomfortable for visually impaired visitors.
The storytelling consists of videos and animations, all multimedia include Sign Language explanations, subtitles and voice-over. Some images are stylized and the explanation are in Simple Language (Easy-to-read2017) to facilitate comprehension by visitors with cognitive deficits.
In the project we refurbished some unused equipment, replacing the electronics with an Arduino board and applying stickers on the device to renew its aspect.
The applications produced by “Museo4U” show that almost always “less is more”, and simple expedients may result in a great enhancement of the museum communication.
In this case, the “ZeroKm” approach consisted in re-cycling resources and in addressing, at one time, all visitors, including those with special needs. Such targets were considered in all the phases of the project: design, creation, and testing. It also comprised inclusion guidelines for heritage managers and professionals, which may also apply to the inclusive design and planning of urban spaces.