Universal Design Paradigm and Universal Design Cities

  • Yoon Hyegyoung


On March 30, 2007, 82 UN member countries signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the world’s first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century. The CRPD adopts the principle of equality and non-discrimination to safeguard the dignity and rights of all individuals with physical, mental, or intellectual disabilities. A total of 182 countries ratified the CRPD as of December 2021. Given that there are 196 countries, 93% of the adoption rate is quite impressive. UN highlighted the success of the CRPD as ‘a paradigm shift ,’​1)​ while WHO in 2002 changed its view on disability from the medical model to the social model. The former regards disability as a personal matter and the latter sees disability in terms of milieu. With such changes, people started to perceive disability as a social issue rather than an individual problem and understand that ‘environment’ is a powerful impact factor either ‘enabling’ or ‘disabling’ a person. As a consequence, designers needed to embrace a new approach, shifting from special designs for the few with physical disabilities to inclusive design for all. Some designers believe that design can be considered ‘good’ when it satisfies different needs of people. On the other hand, many creative designers instead applied ‘universal design’ to come up with winning global applause. The CRPD also specified ‘universal design’, coined by an American architect Ron Mace, in the action plan as ‘design of products, environments, programs, and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.’ This propelled many initiatives to cultivate and advance the universal design paradigm in our society. 


After the Industrial Revolution in the 20th century, urban design found its root in mechanical thinking that focused on economic feasibility and functional efficiency. But in the 21st century, the perception around universal design was shifted towards a new paradigm leveraging a human-centered approach with an emphasis on individual ‘values’ and the ‘quality of life.’ We started to see more and more applications of universal design in diverse fields. ‘Universal design paradigm’ incorporates ideas demanded by our times such as ‘prohibition of discrimination’ and ‘equality.’ It suggests a direction towards all-embracing urban design based on ‘empathy, sharing, and symbiosis’ and practices ‘equitable design that doesn’t discriminate against age, gender, disabilities or capabilities (ability to understand)’ and ‘design for all.’ I’ll explain the background, concept, and principles of universal design to draw a proposal on universal design paradigm and universal design city. 


From Accessibility to Universal Design Paradigm

The rise of universal design across the globe involves two things in common. First, regulations were legislated to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities at large buildings. Second, the consumption market proactively sought ways to cope with the aging society. For example, the Royal College of Arts in England established the ‘Design Age Institute’ to form a partnership among academia, government, and industry and find innovative designs needed for the aging society. Since then, interests towards universal design thinking spread throughout the world and countries including the US, Korea(South), Japan, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Southeast Asia, and Switzerland included the concept of universal design paradigm in their policies. Korea(South) adopted various regulations such as the Building Act (1962), the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities (1981,1989), the Act on Guarantee of Promotion of Convenience of Persons with Disabilities, Senior Citizens, Pregnant Women and Nursing Mothers (1998), the Act on Promotion of Transportation Convenience of Mobility Disadvantaged Persons (2005), the Enforcement of Barrier-free Environment Certification (2008), the Rule on Designating and Operating Safety Zone for Children, Senior Citizens, and Persons with Disabilities (2011), and the Rule on Barrier-free Environment Certification (2015). The city of Seoul also enacted relevant laws including the Basic Ordinance on University Design City (2016), the Universal Design Integration Guidelines (2017), and the Comprehensive Plan of Universal Design (2018). Seoul Universal Design Center also opened its doors in 2020. Based on these initiatives, Seoul consistently seeks universal design policies to create a ‘city without discrimination.’


The industrialization of the 20th century led the economic growth and provided better lives and environments. However, mechanical thinking based on ‘mass production,’ ‘averages,’ and ‘standardization’, a concept that defined the era, failed to consider the convenience of people with physical disabilities, the elderly, and pregnant mothers. The standardized urban environments that were designed based on numerical standards isolated those that didn’t fit into the typical category. Consequently, discrimination and inequality in urban environments became major social issues. A movement to resolve these problems took its form in the US during 1950s, with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act that stressed equality of all men. This eventually led to the Barrier-free Movement that focused on reducing unnecessary obstacles in public spaces for people with disabilities. At that time, there was an increase in people with disabilities or physical limitations due to the Vietnam War and industrial accidents. This helped bring up the barriers that kept people with disabilities from accessing facilities and maintaining their day-to-day life as social issues. Thanks to the aggressive stance towards abolishing discrimination, the idea that viewed disability as social issue from the perspective of equal human rights rather than as a personal matter became mainstream. In 1961, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) announced ‘Accessible & Usable,’ the standard for making easily accessible buildings and facilities for Americans with disabilities. A series of related standards and regulations followed including the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1970, and the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standard in 1984 which was a design basis for buildings. As a result, the efforts to eliminate barriers in urban environments and improve the accessibility for people with disabilities finally came to fruition. The UN report on ‘Barrier-free Design’ and the ‘Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons’ were released in 1974 and 1975, respectively. In 1994, UNESCO declared the ‘Salamanca Statement’ on ‘inclusive education for all’ and called on governments to provide regular education to children with special education needs. Such initiative helped propel social integration between the general public and disabled people. 


The social issues associated with ‘equality and prohibition of discrimination’ also impacted the environmental design sector, driving gradual changes from a barrier-free design approach towards universal design. Barrier-free design is about reducing barriers to enhance accessibility. It focuses on disability as an individual’s problem. The social perception on ‘disability’ started to change dramatically. For instance, it was not unusual for senior citizens to experience physical limitations as they get older whether they want to or not. Similarly, anyone can go through temporary handicap due to accidents. Situations such as opening the door while both hands are occupied could also cause a brief barrier. It was also possible for children or people on bicycles to encounter environmental barriers like stairs. As demonstrated by these examples, disability became a concept that can apply to anyone, anywhere. The dramatic changes in perception led to the emergence of ‘design for all.’ Universal design was considered the next design paradigm as it requires environment planning to create environments in which no one experiences barriers. Universal design was first referred by an American architect Ronald Mace who had a disability himself. When delivering his last lecture, ‘A perspective on Universal Design’ at ‘the 21st century design: The universal design internal conference’ in 1998, Professor Mace clearly distinguished barrier-free design from universal design. According to him, barrier-free design is limited to people with disabilities and their access. It focuses on removing architectural barriers through specific design. In other words, it’s designed for the few marginalized. On the other hand, universal design emphasizes environments without barriers from an early stage in the planning process. And designers work with ‘all people’ in mind rather than ‘ordinary people’ and design for various users regardless of their age, gender, nationality, or disabilities. 


When the universal design paradigm was not fully adopted, barrier-free design was widely used to reduce barriers for people with disabilities. At an international conference held in Sweden in 1961, the phrase ‘reduce the barriers to the disabled’ was redefined as ‘accessibility’ and the term ‘accessible design’ was used instead. However, ‘universal design’ has become a more dominant term globally. Similar concepts to universal design include barrier-free design, accessible design, adaptive design, lifespan design, inclusive design, trans-generation design, universally useful products, design for all, and normalization.

The basic concept of the universal design paradigm is to assess barriers for everyone in environmental design from the planning stage and reduce them to increase users’ ‘quality of life.’ By doing so, it seeks a people-centered design approach to eliminate physical and psychological discrimination felt by marginalized people (persons with disabilities, senior citizens, pregnant mothers, people with infants, and children). The universal design paradigm has evolved over the years and incorporated into many different fields including policy, design, education, business, and society as a whole. The advancement of the paradigm is pivotal in creating universal design cities or urban environmental welfare societies based on three values of empathy, sharing, and symbiosis. 


The Principle of ‘Universality’ though Universal Design

Definitions of universal design for all vary by scholars. But according to Ron Mace who advocated the term, it is about designing products, environments, and services to be usable by all people regardless of age, gender, disabilities, or capabilities, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. His definitions emphasized that it should be attractive and functional while easy enough for everyone to use. Professor Mace also stated universal design is a philosophy with all people in mind, not a design style. This is the key to understanding universal design. And it includes all users that need to be considered throughout the entire process of creating a detailed design result.

“Simply a WAY of designing a building or facility at little or no extra cost so it is both attractive and functional for all people disabled or not.”​2)

The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, an institute founded by Professor Mace to implement the philosophy of universal design for all to products, environments, and services, put forward the & Principles of Universal Design as the guideline for universal design application. Below are the seven principles. 


Principle 1> Equitable Use: The design is useful to people regardless of their abilities.

        ◾ Design that provides the same means of use for all users.

        ◾ Design that avoids discrimination or prejudice.

        ◾ Design that appeals to all users. 

Principle 2> Flexibility in Use: The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.

        ◾ The design that provides choice in methods of use.

        ◾ The design that accommodates right- or left-handed access and use.

        ◾ The design that facilitates the user’s accuracy and precision and provides adaptability to the user’s pace.

Principle 3> Simple & Intuitive Use: Use of the design is easy to understand regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, or language skill.

        ◾ The design that eliminates unnecessary complexity.

        ◾ The design that is consistent with user expectations and intuition. 

        ◾ The design that arranges information consistent with its importance.

Principle 4> Perceptible Information: The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user.

        ◾ The design that uses different modes including pictorial, verbal, and tactile to display essential information.

        ◾ The design that maximizes legibility by providing contrast between essential information and its surroundings.

        ◾ The design that provides compatibility with a variety of techniques or devices used by people with sensory limitations.

Principle 5> Tolerance for Error: The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. 

◾ The design that minimizes mistakes by removing hazards and errors. 

        ◾ The design that provides warnings of hazards and errors and redundant fail-safe features.

        ◾ The design that discourages unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance.

 Principle 6> Low Physical Effort: The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.

        ◾ The design that allows the user to maintain a neutral body position.

        ◾ The design that minimize repetitive actions.

        ◾ The design that minimize sustained physical effort.

Principle 7) Size & Space for Approach & Use: Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or mobility.

        ◾ The design that provides a clear line of sight to important elements.

        ◾ The design that accommodates variations in hand and grip size.

        ◾ The design that provides adequate space for the use of assistive devices or personal assistance.


The above seven principles and guidelines serve as core ideas of universal design paradigm, but still they act as minimum standards in its implementation. Understanding the seven principles and associated guidelines helped apply universal design to products, environments, and services and create convenient design solutions. They’re also leveraged as criteria for certification or assessment of universal design. Therefore, their importance cannot be stressed enough. For the seven universal design principles to hold their relevance in the future, it is crucial to evolve and modify them in line with new demands or changes. Wolfgang Preiser stated that the seven principles of universal design need to cover more concepts and areas including coherence, cost effectiveness, self-sufficient design, sustainability, cultural context, modularity, environmental protection, poverty, waste management, sustainable packaging, emergency, disaster relief, patient safety, standards, people-centered, and citizen participation. As such, many are pointing out that the principles of universal design need to embrace the needs of an era. This process will lead to a more dynamic, trustworthy, and flexible design practice. The resulting universal design paradigm will serve as both an environmental paradigm at the micro level that represents the spirit of the age and a social paradigm at the macro level that transforms society and enhances the quality of life.  

 

In the case of Europe, European Institute for Design and Disability (EIDD) was established to improve the quality of life through design for all. According to EIDD, design for all aims to enable all people to have equal opportunities to participate in every aspect of society.​3)  Europe is also seeing increasing diversity in terms of people’s age, cultures, and abilities. Unlike in the past, people can learn to live with disabilities, accidental injuries, or illnesses. These factors require responsible and readily accessible design that accommodates senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and immigrants. The EIDD defines two different perspectives on disability. The first is when designers view disability as a ‘problem.’ Design created based on this approach is limited by laws and regulations and concentrates only on solving the ‘problem’ itself. On the contrary, the second perspective involves environmental designers recognizing disability as a ‘challenge.’ They rely on positive thinking and action as well as a proactive approach to propose innovative ideas and solutions to problems we face. These differing perspectives clearly show the social responsibilities of environmental designers. As we can conclude from the statement in the declaration, ‘good design enables, bad design disables,’ the EIDD stresses the role of design.  


The concept and seven principles of universal design have universal characteristics; ‘equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusiveness,’ ‘symbiosis,’ ‘user-centered,’ and ‘quality of life.’ We are entering into a super-aged society while the Fourth Industrial Revolution is already impacting every corner of our life. In addition, we now have to adapt to a new normal including working from home due to COVID-19, online learning, and remote meetings. Universal design is a basic philosophy that helps us seek human-centered, diversity, inclusiveness, citizen participation, and fairness in our society, economy, culture, and environment. It’s also a practical paradigm creating convenient, warm-hearted cities for residents. Universality embedded within universal design will provide a strategic answer to building a new organic platform for urban spaces. 


Necessity of Universal Design City

Universal design city is human-centered, inclusive city that does not discriminate and treat everyone equally. They also mean city that provides convenience to their residents. There are growing interests toward universal design city due to various factors including fast-approaching super-aged society, changed perception towards disability, the importance of the ‘quality of life’ caused by well-being culture, an increase in international tourists, the growth of multicultural families, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and response to the New Normal caused by COVID-19. Accordingly, cities face the need to adopt a new design paradigm. Many scholars turn to the ‘human-centered’ universal design paradigm as an effective way to address many urban issues and thus support its implementation. 


With the ‘Master Plan of Universal Design City (2018),’ the city of Seoul started to proactively explore the universal design city model. The vision of Seoul’s universal design city is ‘Seoul, people-centered universal design city that discriminates no one.’ The plan also suggested ten keywords including ‘symbiosis,’ ‘empathy,’ ‘sharing,’ ‘equity,’ ‘inclusiveness,’ ‘safety,’ ‘a community that lives together,’ ‘livability,’ ‘innovative global city,’ ‘sustainable city.’ As shown in diagram 1, Seoul’s universal design city framework is based on a comprehensive approach that brings together academia, government, and the private sector. The important values of ‘Seoul, a city easily understood by all: Seoul, BEST To U,’ refer to Barrier-free, Equity & Equality, Security & Safety, Technology of Information & Communication, Together, and Universal Design. The city of Seoul has chosen following pilot tasks; establish a UD-Village, set up a UD-School, implement UD-TBS (public transportation), develop and provide UD systems for facilities near daycare centers or schools, expand and repair safety facilities in areas with foreign population or aged buildings, create fundamental universal design for fire and other disasters, build customized cities for regions, and establish and operate the Universal Design Center. Through policies, Seoul is carrying out these tasks step by step. 


In particular, cities need to quickly adapt to the aging population. Korea has already entered into the aging society in 2000 and the aged society in 2018. Five years later in 2026, we’re forecasted to become a super-aged society. No country has experienced these changes in such a time, as Korea has done in just 26 years. Given this, can we assume that our cities are ready for the super-aged society? The answer is ‘not yet.’ Then, are we in the process of preparing? The answer is ‘yes.’ Indeed, many municipal and low-level local governments including Seoul have established ordinances or guidelines on universal design to incorporate the concept into urban environment design policies. When we fail to plan environments with equally usable infrastructure, then hardware issues can turn into software issues. These will lead to poor social integration, social exclusion, or social and environmental inequalities and ultimately make our society unstable. As Urban dwellers expect improved ‘quality of life’ and efficiency in use of social service facilities and also desire to live in safer, convenient, and inclusive cities, so Universal design cities based on the universal design paradigm can best meet such expectations.     


 
Diagram 1. Seoul University Design City Framework 
Source: Master Plan of Universal Design City in Seoul(2018)

​1)​ Kuhn(1962) defined paradigm as a system or theoretical frame that holds beliefs and understanding shared by every member of a society of a specific era. He also described paradigm shift as a shift in perception, new technologies, or social changes. 
​2) ​Ronald Mace, Universal Design: Barrier-free Environments for Everyone, LA: Designers West 33(1): 147-152, 1985.
​3)​ EIDD, The Stockholm Declaration, 2004.​​

Reference,
The city of Seoul, Seoul’s Comprehensive Plan of Universal Design, ISBN 51-6110000-001977-01, 2018.
Statistics Korea, 2021 Statistics for the elderly.
Center for Universal Design, Universal Design Exemplars (CD-ROM), Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State University, 2000a.
Connell, B. R., M. L., Jones, R. L., Mace, J. L., Mueller, A. Mullick, E. Ostroff, J. Sanford, et al., The Principles of Universal Design, Version 2.0, Raleigh, N.C.: Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University, 1997.
Goldsmith, S., Design for the Disabled, London: RIBA Publications, 1963.
Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Mace, R., “Universal Design, Barrier Free Environments for Everyone,” Designers West, November 1985.
McGuire, J.M., and S.S. Scott, “Universal Design for Instruction: Extending the Universal Design Paradigm to College Instruction,” Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 19:124-134, 2006.
Mullick, A., and E.Steinfeld, “Universal Design: What It Is and What It Isn’t,” Innovation,The Quaterly Journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America, 16:1, 1997.
Preiser, W.F.E., “Paradigm for the 21st Century: The Challenge of Implementing Universal Design,” in Inclusive Buildings, Products, and Services: Challenges in Universal Design, T. Vavik(ed.), Trondheim, Norway: Tapir Academic Press, 2009.
Tauke, B., “Diversity and Design,” Universal Design Education Online, http://www.udeducation.org, 2004 

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