How to Design Cities for Everyone
Words by Fiona Murphy
Photography by Kimberly K. Canales-Ascui and Clint Sutherland
This story was originally published in Issue 4 and is brought to you by our impact partner, Deakin University.
One in five Australians have a disability. So why aren't we designing our cities for them?
For the first time in history, more than half of the world lives in cities. According to the World Bank, this figure is on track to reach 70 percent by 2050. With so many people now existing side by side, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised that dense living impacts our physical and psychological wellbeing. Feeling ‘at home’ should not be a whimsical desire; it should be a priority of governments and city planners. As part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which Australia signed up to in 2015, all cities must strive to be “inclusive, safe, sustainable and resilient”. So how are we faring in Australia?
The Australian Network on Disability states that almost one third of Australians with disabilities aged 15 years and older avoid situations because of their disability. The most common situation people avoid is going to the shops.
Currently one in five Australians have a disability. While this number may seem high, disability is diverse and can be either visible or invisible. Regardless of whether someone’s disability is physical, neurological or sensory, a significant proportion of the population experience barriers to accessing their community. This is concerning, as social connections are essential to maintaining good health. According to Harvard Medical School’s HEALTHbeat journal, “a relative lack of social ties is associated with depression and later-life cognitive decline, as well as with increased mortality”.
A 2018 report from Relationships Australia suggests that most Australians will feel lonely at some point in their lives: at any given time, approximately nine percent of the population experiences loneliness. Researchers have found that it is common for people to “move in and out of states of loneliness” depending on their personal circumstances, such as lifestage, family dynamic and employment status. Social isolation, however, is a more complex issue as it reflects how we have designed our cities.
As a manual wheelchair user in Victoria, Jess Cochran from Sunbury says she experiences access issues “pretty much every day”.
“So many buildings have narrow doorways. Even if I get a disabled carpark, there have been so many times I’ve had to wheel 100 metres up a busy street trying to find somewhere to mount the curb.”
Attempting to navigate urban environments on wheels takes considerable time and effort. “I often have to leave home early to give myself time to get to an appointment, otherwise it is too stressful or too exhausting. There is so much planning required. My psychologist’s office has two steps at their entrance. Every time I have an appointment, I have to wait outside and call the receptionist. Then they have to try to lift me up the stairs in my manual wheelchair.”
Jess has recently applied for an electric wheelchair. If her funding application is successful, she says the building will become completely inaccessible. “Those chairs are impossible to lift. I appreciate that they are willing to help me into the building, especially as it’s not an easy task. But it is frustrating that they haven’t made the building’s entrance accessible.”
Even with rigorous planning, Jess has found that many places are completely inaccessible – including her own neighbourhood. “I don’t have the option to get to know people living here, because I can’t access so many places in the area.”
Imogen Newhouse from North Melbourne has also experienced social isolation. Imogen’s energy levels fluctuate as a result of myalgic encephalomyelitis, a condition commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. “I’m disabled from a chronic illness and I think a lot of the isolation I've experienced has come from access hurdles as well as social stigma. If your health deteriorates and you’re no longer able to turn up to school or work, about 95 percent of the people in your life just drop off.”
Imogen describes herself as a part-time mobility aid user. Her level of mobility fluctuates depending on the severity of her symptoms. At home, where she knows her environment well, she is often able to walk short distances unaided. Leaving the house, however, is far less predictable. Depending on her energy levels and plans for the day, Imogen uses an electric mobility scooter, a walking stick, walking frame or manual wheelchair to get around.
Imogen explains that she experiences both visible and invisible barriers. “There are places I would have previously gone to such as bars, cafés and restaurants, that I can’t go to anymore. Most venues are crowded and play loud music, which I find too difficult to follow conversations in. Besides, many venues have a step at their entrance, particularly heritage buildings. I’m not saying rip down all the historical buildings, they are beautiful, but there are places that are being built now that aren’t accessible at all. It would be great for design to start from an accessible viewpoint, rather than trying to fit accessibility into the design.”
Deakin University’s Richard Tucker is the project leader of the Accessible and Inclusive Geelong Project. He is keenly aware that not all barriers are visible. “There are people with ‘hidden’ disabilities or disabilities that present different challenges to access,” he explains. “This may include people with mental health problems, cognitive disabilities or neurodiversity. For them there can be barriers such as not being able to read or understand physical signs, or not being able to cope in loud, confusing and complex spaces. It is an intersection of the physical and the more subtle factors that either make you feel welcome, or not, to a place.”
Currently, the Victorian city of Geelong is working hard to become one of the most accessible cities in the world. It’s taking design seriously. In 2017, Geelong became the first Australian city to be designated a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN). The network also includes Barcelona, Cape Town, Berlin and Mexico City.
Dr Russell Kennedy, course director of the Bachelor of Design at Deakin University, was a member of the City of Greater Geelong’s UNESCO Creative Cities application committee. “Social isolation can be caused by bad design, or design that only caters for able-bodied people,” he says. “Historically, there hasn’t been enough consideration for disabled voices in the design process. In Geelong, we are using empathy as the first point of the design-thinking process and we are engaging disabled people from the start.”
Design thinking is a five-stage process. The first step, empathy, is considered so vital to design that Stanford University’s d.school (an interdisciplinary hub for innovation and design) employs an empathy planner to help designers meaningfully engage with the people they are designing for. “Empathy,” d.school states, “is the foundation for a strong, human-centered point of view, and a great design project demands a rich empathy experience.”
The design process typically moves on to defining the problem, generating ideas, developing a prototype and then a testing phase. As a non-linear, iterative process, users may return to different phases several times before they come up with a robust design solution.
"It would be great for design to start from an accessible viewpoint, rather than trying to fit accessibility into the design.”
"Currently, the Victorian city of Geelong is working hard to become one of the most accessible cities in the world."
Dr Kennedy says that while designers have always been working with design thinking, “now it is being embraced as an agent of change by businesses, organisations and cities”.
“The only obstacle is within people themselves. If the goal is set and people are passionate, there’s no reason why we can’t achieve an accessible and inclusive city. All the answers are within design. The design thinking process ensures collaboration and empathy. So really, it is only limited by one’s imagination.”
Imogen wholeheartedly agrees that collaboration is the key to ensuring cities are more inclusive. “There needs to be more awareness about access. I think it is hard for a lot of able-bodied people to grasp the sense of urgency about access – often it is still seen as optional.”
Jess believes that the lived experiences of disabled people are crucial to ensure designs are actually functional. “Bringing people with disabilities in to do consulting roles is important; we know what is required to make places accessible.”
The impact of including disabled people in the design process can be dramatic. Jess recounts her experience of travelling through rural Australia: “When we were in Mildura I visited the town centre. It was an open shopping strip, without cars or curbs to navigate. My support carer and I managed to get four blocks in just a few minutes. Usually it would take forever to get this far in the city.”
Improving the accessibility of Mildura has long been a key focus of the council. Mildura’s Disability Access Advisory Committee was established in 2001. Made up of community representatives, the committee meets with the council on a monthly basis to discuss access and inclusion issues. As a result of this collaborative effort, people with disabilities are now able to move through town with an ease that is rare in many other urban settings.
“I felt like I was in a completely different world,” says Jess. “To breeze up the road to Coles was incredible, especially as I can’t even get to the supermarket in my local community of Sunbury.”
Thinking creatively and empathically about how we design our cities is essential to create a feeling of home for everyone.