Contents

Insights

#1 Design is everywhere

Everything around us is designed. Our products, services, environments, and other humanmade spaces, but also our social structures and systems. Designing for all is far more than a wheelchair ramp to access a building or accessible websites.

#2 Design shapes our sense of belonging in this world

Design fosters our ability to access, participate in, and contribute to the world. In cities in particular, the awareness is growing that radical changes are necessary in order to achieve a fair, safe and healthy living environment for everyone.

#4 For every injustice in this world, there is an architecture built to sustain and perpetuate it

The dominant narrative of design and design thinking is often rooted in systems of oppression and exclusion. What we tend to do in this world is design for the middle, and not for the margins. When we start designing for the people who are actually living with the failures of our designed products, spaces, and systems, we will create and build stronger structures for everyone. DESIGNING CITIES FOR ALL

INCLUSIVE DESIGN IS A PROCESS, NOT AN OUTCOME. THERE IS NOT JUST ONE METHOD TO PRACTICE DESIGNING CITIES FOR ALL. LET THIS BE A LIVING DOCUMENT, A CONTINUOUS SEARCH FOR BETTER DESIGN PRACTICES AND BETTER DESIGN VOCABULARY.

#3 There are flaws in these designs

Not being able to read small type on a screen as you age, soap dispensers that don’t respond to black skin, health trackers that don’t include the female cycles. Design bias is harmful, and can even be lethal. What applies to products and services, the same goes for places and systems — think about unsafe environments and inequalities in health and housing due to bad design.

#5 Inclusion happens by design or not at all

Design can cause, but also sort out exclusion. In order to arrive at systems and living environments that everyone — regardless of age, cultural background, ethnicity, mental and physical capacities, religion, and gender — can relate to in a fair and equal manner, ask yourself: ‘who am I excluding?’ and allow the answer to design cities for all.

#6 Everyone is a (re)designer

We all make, build, arrange and restructure. In that sense basically everyone can participate in design, and it also means people outside the traditional design team are making significant design choices. As designers, we have to involve the right people in the design process, and learn how to interface and interact with the current systems and power paradigms, in order to build inclusive solutions from the ground up.

CITIES OF BELONGING

Aminata Cairo Nishant Shah Nica Renoult Laura Adèr & Ariana Rose Maggi Leung OluTimehin Kukoyi

‘My identity and history help me to understand the world in a better way and add something to the architectural field, which maybe others cannot because they don’t have my history and background. That is the beautiful thing about a diverse society — that everyone can add something out of their own experience.’ ÁÂ ARNA MACKIC DCFA LIVECAST THE IDENCITY: HUMAN IDENTITY

‘The collective is something that requires mutuality. We don’t stand alone. We’re not individuals that somehow planet on an island, you know.’

DR. NATALIE DIXON DCFA LIVECAST DESIGN FROM INCLUSION: SPACES