Situating universal design architecture: designing with whom?

Purpose: To respond to growing calls for a theoretical unpacking of Universal Design (UD), a disparate movement cohering around attempts to design spaces and technologies that seek to allow use by all people (to the fullest extent possible). The on-going embedding of UD into architectural practice and pedagogy represents an opportune juncture at which to draw learning from other distinct-but-related transformatory architectural movements. Methods: Sociological-theoretical commentary. Results: UD has to date, and necessarily, been dominated by the practice contexts from which it emerged. Appealing as a short-hand for description of “designing-for-all”, in most cases UD has come to stand in as a term to signal a general intent in this direction and as an umbrella term for the range of technical design resources that have been developed under these auspices. There remains a fundamental ambivalence vis-à-vis the question of users’ power/capacity to influence decision-making in the design process in UD; technically-oriented typologies of bodies predominate in influential UD architectural accounts. Conclusions IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION: Universal Design (UD) architecture shares a close affinity with rehabilitation practice, with the creation of built environments that allow use by individuals with a wide range of capacities a priority for both. While an effective communicative “bridge” between professions, UD’s deployment typically leaves unspoken the capacity of users to meaningfully affect decision-making in the design process. UD architecture has much to draw from, and contribute to, parallel movements in “participatory architectural design”; debates therein have illuminated much about the social practices underpinning designing for difference. UD could engage more fully with questions relating to the social and political role of the architect.