Glyn Everett, Guest Editor, University of the West of England, UK
Introduction
Worldwide, as well as in Australia, many challenges to achieving a sustainable, resilient built environment have been identified, including multidimensional resourcing constraints, rapid urbanisation, failing infrastructure and socio-demographic change.1 Populations are known to be ageing, human diversity is increasingly recognised, and evidence that the built environment affects health and well-being is mounting.2 The ‘neighbourhood’ as a key spatial and social construct, and focus of policy and practice, has received attention across many fields, for example planning, community development, health and sustainability.3 Obviously, the neighbourhood built environment is used by people with disability. Nonetheless, the accessibility performance of the existing built environment, particularly at neighbourhood scale, continues to fail people with disability.4
However, in something of a parallel universe, much built environment assessment research is being undertaken. Many city-enhancement movements, sustainability indicators and built environment performance measures already exist. Improving built environment ‘sustainability’ performance, via measurement, receives much contemporary attention.5 Within the associated bodies of literature, the need to research, critically appraise and measure the existing built environment is well established. Why, then, is built environment accessibility performance at neighbourhood scale for people with disability so rarely considered?
This paper endeavours to respond to this question. First, a brief review of building performance measures, urban realm assessment, and interdisciplinary health-built environment analysis is presented. Second, the lack of engagement with people with disability in relation to accessing neighbourhoods, and the resultant poor built environment accessibility performance, are discussed under the headings ‘design’, ‘planning’ and ‘politics’. Last, the case for assessing neighbourhood accessibility performance, an essential component in the process of built environment accessibility improvement, is put forward.
Built Environment Performance Measures
The performance of residential and commercial buildings and/or their components is already measured in a myriad ways, in Australia and elsewhere. Such tools range from measuring the performance of particular aspects of singular building componentry, including appliances, through to comprehensive investigations of total building systems, albeit from specific perspectives. Furthermore, measurement systems have been in place for decades. In Australia, major household appliances have been star-rated since the mid-1980s.6 More recently, in September 2018, and aimed at global scale, the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment officially launched.7 Backed by the World Green Building Council (WGBC), the project requires signatories to instigate national net zero carbon rating tools and certification schemes by 2030 and commit to all (100 per cent) buildings within their portfolios being net zero carbon by 2050.8
Energy rating systems aimed at improving energy efficiency and/or reducing operating costs within buildings started gaining traction worldwide in the early 1990s. A unifying feature of these systems is benchmarking and rating, permitting succinctly communicated comparison across differing installations and (numerical) ‘incentives’ to do better. Some common examples of such systems are noted in Table 1. Current iterations of such tools are invariably more sophisticated (technical) and/or comprehensive (sustainability-oriented) than when first released.
As alluded to above, the concept of ‘energy efficient buildings’ has morphed through ‘environmentally green building’ and has, more recently, embraced broader readings of ‘sustainability’, including a greater recognition that people inhabit buildings. Developing from a theoretical idea that emerged in the mid-1990s, the Living Building Challenge (LBC, the Challenge) was codified and launched in late 2006.23 The Challenge – with its seven performance areas of Place, Equity, Water, Beauty, Materials, Health + Happiness, and Energy – is considered one of the most onerous, multidimensional building performance tools currently in use.24 Life cycle assessment (LCA) originated out of project-based 1960s and 1970s energy analysis, moved through policy-based applications in the 1990s, and was mainly concerned with environmental impacts in the 2000s.25 LCA is, however, ever-divergent and evolving; a current focus includes life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) covering the people (social), planet (environmental) and prosperity (economic) dimensions of sustainability.26 Although early on, in the early 1990s, indoor air quality (IAQ) was predominantly a concern of heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers (HRAEs), the field has subsequently broadened out to consider indoor environment more holistically. Now, using standards and methodologies such as the British Standard BS ISO 17772, Indian Standard ISHRAE Standard 10001: 2016 – Indoor Environmental Quality Standard, and the Building Occupants Survey System Australia (BOSSA), indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is assessed in terms of thermal comfort/temperature, fresh air/indoor air quality, daylight/lighting/lighting comfort, and acoustics/acoustic comfort.27 Further, building occupant well-being is now studied through methodologies such as the WELL Building Standard.28 Grouped under its eleven ‘concepts’ of: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind, Community and Innovation, the ambit of the WELL Building Standard (v.2 pilot) is wide.29 Most unusually, but very encouragingly, disability is acknowledged, universal design (UD) is referenced, and accessibility requirements are noted.30
Formal assessment via any of the tools mentioned above requires significant financial outlay as assessment is, almost without exception, undertaken by accredited experts using specialised computer software. The shortcomings of ‘one-off’ sustainability assessment tools, and the mismatch between ‘as designed’ ratings and ‘as built’ performance, is coming under increasing scrutiny; ‘set and forget’ is insufficient – evaluation of actual performance, and ongoing monitoring, is required.31 Enriched post-occupancy data collection, more in-depth behavioural studies, and more sophisticated monitoring activities, enhanced by ever-developing computerised analysis systems, are anticipated to improve built environment-human interaction sustainability outcomes.32 Building accessibility, however, is usually ‘compliance’ access-audited against enigmatic legislation, and presented in esoteric spreadsheet format, without any overarching narrative outlining the significance of the individually itemised entries.33 Conventional access auditing, also usually undertaken by accredited experts for a substantial fee, also does not accommodate monitoring, or the collection of post-investigation user satisfaction data, or sophistication of computerised analysis systems, particularly those involving GIS.
Urban realm measurement interests are wide-ranging. Assessing and/or ranking city-scale sustainability, resilience, liveability, smartness and more, is now well-entrenched (see, for example, EIU’s Livable Cities, Mercer’s Quality of Living, AT Kearney’s Global Cities Index, Smart Cities, Resilient Cities, Healthy Cities, and Age-Friendly Cities). Non-standardised evaluation methodologies are, however, cited as a problem.34 Nevertheless, irrespective of specific methodology, the core beliefs of resilient cities evaluation, for example, are: first, that to become more resilient, improvement is needed; second, that existing conditions measurement, via indicators, is an essential precursor to improvement; and third, that cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary collaboration is required.35 Healthy cities evaluation (why, what, for who, by who and how) is also an ongoing thorny issue, but comprehensive problem mapping at the outset leads to enhanced project and participation outcomes.36 Ethical cities measurement processes are still embryonic, but both ‘objective’ quantifiable measures and more qualitative measures involving engagement, judgement and discussion have their valuable places in measurement.37 Therefore, although multiplicity of assessment methodologies is questioned, measurement and collaboration across multiple domains is essential. Disturbingly, however, the need for ‘accessibility in the built environment’ improvement for people with disability is rarely mentioned directly, if at all.
From at least the late 1970s, improving transport infrastructure and public transport has been on the research agenda. Systematically investigating existing physical conditions and policy contexts, development of evaluation methodologies including indices, interdisciplinary collaboration, and stakeholder engagement at local citizen level are all common components of road re/construction, road safety auditing, ‘safe system’ traffic safety, ‘shared space’ design, ‘roads as places’, and mobility.38 In the public transport field, although motivations for desired improvements are manifold, and initiating entities across multiple modes diverse, common tasks include acquiring quantitative data; ascertaining physical, disciplinary and political interconnections; and understanding the existing condition of public transport built assets.39Again, a worryingly common feature of these endeavours is the lack of inclusion of the lived experience of people with disabilities.
Much mapping and modelling, including computer-generated spatial investigations using GIS software, has been undertaken throughout the world.40 Sidewalk details, however, are still commonly missing from GIS datasets.41 Modelling for fire engineering (in dense built-up areas) has been developed.42 Sustainable mobility has been indexed.43 Investigating walkability, measuring urban form complexity, assessing sustainable urban design, and examining crash severity and streetscape design, are common, contemporary, areas of in-depth built environment performance research occurring at neighbourhood scale.44 Improving existing roads, improving road safety, and designing shared pedestrian-vehicle space routinely involves systematically investigating existing physical conditions, evaluating policy frameworks, and community engagement.45 Nevertheless, the urban realm accessibility needs of people with disabilities are rarely considered, and their direct input is rarely sought.
Within the interdisciplinary health-built environment field, scrutinising the built environment at micro-scale (buildings), meso-scale (neighbourhood) and macro-scale (city-wide) is also well established. Often undertaken from multidisciplinary perspectives, there has been much analysis, particularly within the last decade, involving researching, imaging, recording and measuring the interaction between people and their environments, with a view, for example, to increasing physical activity, obtaining insights into older adults’ mobility and well-being, enhancing active travel, reducing negative impacts on health at home, and increasing positive impacts on health at the community level.46 The need to view the ‘problem’ at the scale of the user, and from a user-centred vantage point is acknowledged.47 But, Appleyard, for example, continues the entrenched tradition of highly technical transport-land use evaluation undertaken by experts only; no lived experience and/or community member input is sought, and no concern for the specific travel needs of people with disability is expressed. The key recommendations of health-built environment projects for future research often include focusing on changing existing environments and pursuing interdisciplinary understanding.48 Nevertheless, although terminology such as ‘social inclusion for all’ (or similar) is becoming more common, the need for improving ‘accessibility in the built environment’, for people with disability, is still rarely, if at all, directly mentioned.
Accessing the Neighbourhood?
Design
Existing built environment inaccessibility can be explained, partly, by the central tenets of historical disability models, such as the charity (institutional) and medical models of disability.49 Under these models, the public profile of people with disabilities was rendered virtually non-existent.50 While outwardly signifying care and protection of the vulnerable other, the charity model, and the similar religious and moral disability models, point to the desire to control, via segregation, ‘deviant members’ of society.51 A core response was the construction of institutions. Therefore, in the context of the built environment, the charity model of disability effectively translates to ‘we don’t have to worry about them, they are put away’ in institutions.52 Often large and imposing, with cavernous dormitories and sited within extensive grounds away from town centres, asylums, a common landmark of the late 1800s and early 1900s in Australia, the UK and the USA, are a clear built-form manifestation of the institutional nature of the charity model of disability.53 Imrie observed that ‘western cities are characterized by a design apartheid where building form and design are inscribed with the values of an “able-bodied” society’54 – a consequence of the charity model’s invisible segregation of people with disability.
Central tenets of the medical model of disability are that, first, a person’s ‘impairment’ can be diagnosed, cured, or at least rehabilitated, by modern medicine and/or medical technology, and, second, that such interventions will be provided by all-knowing professionals.55 The medical model, in a health context, is based on classifying levels of deviance or deficiency compared to a supposedly normative state.56 Similar models, such as personal tragedy model, individual model and rehabilitation model, often used interchangeably, point to the individualised emphasis of the medical model. Such ideology tends to lead to the (unacknowledged) belief among built environment practitioners that the built environment accessibility needs of people with disabilities will be resolved by individual provision of personalised medical intervention and/or assistive technology. For built environment practitioners, therefore, the medical model of disability effectively translates to ‘we don’t have to worry about them, they will be fixed’ or, again, institutionalised.57 A crucial consequence of the once pervasive ideology of institutionalisation, which reached its peak under the medical model, is that much existing built environment, particularly within the public realm, is inaccessible for people with disability.58
Engendered by the low public profile of people with disabilities, conformist societal attitudes, design precedents, weak legislation, and poor understanding of the built environment accessibility needs of people with disability, a significant extent of the existing built environment and public transport infrastructure has been designed within a paradigm of a charity/medical model of disability, albeit unconsciously. Another reading of exclusionist design thinking is provided by Finkelstein and Hunt; their social relational theory concludes that social exclusion of people with disability was an outcome ‘of the materialist landscape of the industrial era’ rendering them economically unviable.59 Viewed through such a lens, design of factories and workplaces, schools, public transport systems and infrastructure was heavily influenced by the attitudes of the designers’ clientele. In contrast, well-known contemporary disability models, such as the social and human rights models of disability, offer insight into the imperative of improving the accessibility of the existing built environment.60
The social model of disability was developed in the early 1980s by Mike Oliver, a British academic and disability activist. As explained by the social model, disability arises from barriers within ‘an oppressive and discriminating society’, rather than from impairment per se.61 In a challenge to the medical model, the onus of response is shifted to society to dismantle barriers that construct disability.62 The social model of disability therefore recognises that disability is not a pre-existing, independent, condition – the built environment is a disabling instrument in itself, that is, the nature and experience of disability is directly linked to the built environment.63
New ways of thinking had also extended to built form. Internationally, postmodernist architecture had started to emerge in the 1960s. However, in the 1980s, the Australian, popular version, was rarely manifested in more than facade form and decoration; little attention was paid to postmodernism’s underlying hallmark concerns of diversity and discrimination. Therefore, urban layouts and building design in Australia remained largely untouched by the concerns of either postmodern social theorists or proponents of the social model of disability, thus remaining as inaccessible as ever.
The currently unfolding human rights model of disability did not spontaneously appear, but rather evolved within a continuum of rights-based thinking.64 In response to an emphasis on rights and deinstitutionalisation, disability research and activism work in the USA precipitated the emergence of the independent living movement in Berkeley, California in the early 1970s.65 On the other hand, Schindler (2015) highlights the discriminatory power, through design and planning mechanisms, that the built environment has had, and continues to have, over people’s lives. Central to the human rights model is that all people have rights, including that of built environment access.66 The human rights model, empowered by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), specifically draws attention to the wide-ranging nature of the built environment, for example, housing, public buildings, transport and social/cultural/recreational locations.67
In discussing the development towards the UNCRPD, Bruce restates the views of prominent disability studies writers (for example, Zola, Oliver and Hahn) in explicitly problematising inaccessible built environments for people with disability.68 Theresia Degener characterises the inaccessibility of the built environment as a human rights problem, suggesting that disability studies has moved beyond the debate of medical versus social models of disability into a new era: a human rights model of disability era as epitomised by the UNCRPD.69 Notions of spatial inclusion at community level are embedded in the UNCRPD and, as evidenced by Preamble and Article content, the way people are supported to interact with their (neighbourhood) environment is considered crucial.70 The UNCRPD/human rights model of disability presages more obviously defined, and compliance-enforceable, built environment accessibility legislation – the prescriptive Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, USDoJ 2017), for example, rather than the performance-based Australian Disability Discrimination Act.71
From my ‘accessibility in the built environment’ specialist perspective, I believe that understanding the above concepts is invaluable. Improving built environment accessibility is, however, compromised by the lack of understanding of disability issues, including disability models, by built environment practitioners, and the lack of direct engagement with people with disability and the lack of content in curricula.72 Architects, planners, builders and construction engineers, in Melbourne at least, have virtually no exposure to universal design (UD) at trade, undergraduate, postgraduate or continuing professional education levels.73 In 2015, in Australia, across urban design, planning and architecture, no major built environment design programme at undergraduate or postgraduate level contained universal design, designing for disability, inclusive design, people-centred design or the like as a core course.74 In 2016–18, while technical tutor at a leading Melbourne-based university, I found that only 1–3 students in each design studio group of around 16 postgraduates had previous exposure to disability-related teaching content.
Furthermore, built environment design practitioners – architects, for example – are programmed through entrenched educational systems to view the built environment as a ‘problem’ requiring ‘solving’.75 However, conventional training and conventional, isolationist, built environment problem-solving approaches leave built environment design practitioners ill-equipped for an increasingly complex, interdisciplinary, modern world, particularly a world of urbanised, ageing populations and diverse people with disability.76
Planning
Many people with disability across regions as diverse in resources, geography, politics and culture as the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the USA, continental Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, the Pacific Islands, the African continent and Latin America, find their everyday environments a daily, overwhelming struggle.77 Common themes are very obvious: social inclusion is stymied by the inability to navigate broken travel chains; built environment elements of greatest concern are housing, the public realm pedestrian environment, and public transport; lack of enforcement of existing legislation is a very significant problem; and inconsistent and/or misinterpretation of existing legislation is also problematic.78 Despite all this, accessibility for people with disability in the urban realm, a realm intimately related to ‘planning’, appears to be a built environment performance measure blind spot.
Relationships between physical locations and design quality, individual buildings and the neighbourhood, conventional planning and modern urban form, global and local contexts, and streetscape design and traffic management are complex.79 Nonetheless, sustainability measurement tools at neighbourhood scale, interdisciplinary sustainability assessment at various scales, and weighted indicators for the purpose of ‘sustainability’ evaluation, are now ubiquitous.80 Ewing, Handy, Brownson, Clemente and Winston (2006) argue that, by way of systemised measurement, quantification of qualitative urban design qualities is achievable.81 Sipe, Mayere-Donehue and Dedkorkut (2011) emphasise the educational value, for both professionals and academics, of measuring urban form via international comparative analyses.82 A common thread running through the literature, however, is the need to critically appraise and measure the existing urban environment. Assessment of urban design qualities and landscape character can, with the appropriate checks and balances, be undertaken by laypeople.83 Therefore non-expert local citizens directly assessing existing conditions for the purposes of improving future outcomes is not a weird idea. But embedding people with disability in assessment processes is, disturbingly, still novel.
Improving urban environments via placemaking is now well established in the urban planning lexicon. Placemaking is based on the idea that ‘places’ are more than mere physical spaces, and, as such, can be considered in planning terms as a kind of ‘performance’ enhancement. Professional disciplines such as landscape architecture and urban design are often intimately involved in the process of placemaking through urban realm planning and design. Local government authorities, in Melbourne and elsewhere, often have ‘place managers’ and/or placemaking teams allocated to particular geographical precincts. Early placemaking proponents were somewhat evangelical. The Project for Public Spaces and Metropolitan Planning Council (2008) claimed, for example, that placemaking ‘has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century’.84 Albeit not necessarily neighbourhood-scale dependent, the intentionally interdisciplinary notion of placemaking is heavily reliant on the concept of ‘the neighbourhood’.85 A currently unfolding iteration of placemaking is ‘placeshaping’.86 Pugalis posits that placeshaping proponents are less enthusiastic about the end-product focus and deterministic nature of placemaking, believing that the process-focused placeshaping approach will yield superior place quality, ‘a constituent factor in the shaping of places that enriches social experiences and economic interactions’.87
Although application may vary, placemaking principles commonly considered essential worldwide include meaningful community stakeholder engagement and existing conditions evaluation (see, for example, Placemaking Chicago: http://www.placemakingchicago.com/). Placeshaping, however, appears to be somewhat in danger of being hijacked by city shaping, (that is, production of iconic infrastructure invariably undertaken by the big end of town), with a resultant lack of attention to grass-roots, social inclusion planning for people with disability. Nonetheless, infrastructure conventionally considered as vehicular transport infrastructure – roads, for example – is under the placemaking evaluation spotlight.88 If roads are to be considered places, then it is certainly timely to gain deeper understanding of people with disabilities’ current lived experience of both the iconically planned and grass-roots unplanned infrastructure environment.
Social inclusion at community level is considered essential for health and well-being.89 But people with disability ‘can’t get there, can’t get in, can’t get it’.90 From a policy perspective, the neighbourhood is of vital importance in influencing children’s physical activity levels and older persons’ physical activity, health and well-being.91 Poor pedestrian infrastructure limits older persons’ physical activity.92 Independent living in ‘ordinary’ community settings is obviously stymied if the neighbourhood pedestrian environment is inaccessible. Disadvantaged communities tend to exhibit poorer outcomes across a range of health and well-being measures, including physical activity and social exclusion.93 However, the relationship between neighbourhood factors and disability is little researched.94
Politics
Regarding the built environment, people with disability continue to experience lack of meaningful involvement in research, participation in decision-making, partnership equality and direct influence over policy.95 In response, people with disability often form their own, grass-roots, specific-interest, ‘self-advocacy’ groups.96 However, such groups tend to have limited impact, as they rarely have sufficient resources to engage in systemic advocacy, an advocacy model considered more effective for policy change.97 On the other hand, well-resourced, ‘healthy environments’ advocacy tends to encompass improving public transport service levels, increasing active transport, making neighbourhoods walkable, communities healthy, ageing actively, and the like, with scant reference to people with disability.98 ‘Human interaction with the built environment’ research continues to exclude people with disability through design limitation and/or intention.99 Across Europe, disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) believe that people with disabilities’ lived experience of transport, housing, ageing, reasonable accommodations (in education and employment), workplace design and vision impairment is little understood and requires multidisciplinary research involving architecture and design.100 The built environment is significantly under-represented within Australia’s disability research base.101
Emerging partnership concepts such as ‘co-production’ and ‘co-design’ are gaining traction in the public service delivery/social policy/disability studies arena.102 Built environment professionals have, by and large, not heard of such things. Built environment researchers and professionals have not paid much attention to people with disability, nor to their physical, sensory, societal or political interactions with the built environment.103 Furthermore, advocacy for built environment accessibility, usually, merely calls for compliance with relevant anti-discrimination and construction legislation, which, invariably, do not mention ‘the neighbourhood’ at all.
People with disabilities’ right to inclusion is, at face value, enshrined in multiple layers of legislation, including the internationally recognised UNCRPD. By, in effect, requiring all of the built environment to be accessible, the UNCRPD is groundbreaking, but there are several layers of procedure between adoption and legislative ‘standing’ within a country. Although Australia has not specifically incorporated the UNCRPD into domestic law, ratification imposes inherent obligations.104 Within Australia, however, most built environment practitioners are not familiar with the UNCRPD and, worldwide, people with disability continue to experience significant difficulty in accessing the built environment, particularly at neighbourhood scale.105
Political direction, societal norms and entrenched ways of working inform governance structures, which are then reflected in regulatory methodologies.106 In Australia, in built environment longevity terms, built environment accessibility legislation is relatively recent. Historically, various state-based building regulations generally contained some provision for ‘disabled access’. However, the DDA was not enacted until 1992, the Building Code of Australia (BCA, (ABCB 2016)) was not fully adopted nationwide until 1998, Braille and tactile signage requirements were not included in the BCA until Amendment 10 in 2002, and the (Australian) Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 2010 (Premises Standards, (Australian Government 2010)) was not in force until 2011!
Furthermore, built environment legislation is opaque.107 As I108 have discussed previously, Australia’s complaints-based DDA provides a broad-brush overarching framework, but makes scant direct reference to the built environment. The (Australian) Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Education Standards) are generally ignored by built environment practitioners and the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002 (Transport Standards) and Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 2010 (Premises Standards, Australian Government 2010) are incomprehensible to those without sufficient background technical knowledge and access to all referenced documents, the latter not being freely available. Deemed-to-satisfy provisions, in both the Premises Standards and the Building Code of Australia (BCA), are not prescriptive; satisfying the Performance Requirements is the legislative requirement. Significant portions of buildings, for example, fit-out, fixtures and fittings, are not directly covered in deemed-to-satisfy provisions, which mainly focus on wheelchair-accessible paths of travel and toilets. BCA Parts concerning ‘accessibility’ do not reference either the DDA, or Disability Standards. The BCA and the Premises Standards do not cover the public realm pedestrian environment nor most private dwellings, categories of built form spatially comprising most of the built environment and two of the three most common areas of built environment accessibility distress for people with disability.109 As a result, within Australia, built environment practitioners’ understanding of accessibility is limited, tending to devolve into a checklist response to BCA Part D3 clauses.
As noted in this paper and elsewhere, ‘disability’ and ‘built environment’ tend not to mix.110 Built environment accessibility policy is undeveloped, and built environment accessibility legislation is object-centred, implementation-focused, and taken as fact.111 In contrast, as indicated by my current PhD studies, disability legislation and policy tends to be person-centred, policy reasoning explained, and, essentially, a public sector activity. Creating and delivering built environment form is, conversely, increasingly a private-sector activity.112 The actors involved, however, have little understanding of either the accessibility needs of people with disability, or the inaccessibility, particularly at neighbourhood scale, of the existing built environment.
Assessing Neighbourhood Accessibility Performance: Measure
Empirical measurement of the existing built environment, particularly at neighbourhood scale, is lacking.113 As I114 have previously discussed, ongoing development of publicly available access auditing tools is occurring in the USA. Assessment using such tools is, however, invariably compliance-based, in checklist format, and not an easily communicable measure of built environment performance. Compliance-achieving rectification recommendations are the main output, along with cost estimates. Legislation interrogation and user preferences are not contemplated, reducing the process to a financial transaction, rather than an upholding of rights. Data obtained are not applicable at neighbourhood scale, and there is no expectation that findings will be used for any wider, community-oriented, benefit. Contemporary investigations into neighbourhood accessibility appear to have mostly emerged from non-built environment disciplinary perspectives and do not purport to be replicable assessment instruments. While the somewhat illogical nuances of built environment production are difficult to comprehend from a non-built environment perspective, clearly the built environment knowledge domain does not, generally, understand disability.115
Requiring collaboration between the built environment and disability knowledge domains and questioning of existing expert-driven assessment methods, a new tool, the Universal Mobility Index (UMI), has emerged.116 The UMI, as tool, is methodologically intended to function as a rights-based indicator of built environment accessibility for people with disability at neighbourhood scale. The existing built environment, at neighbourhood scale, encompasses a diversity of constructed forms that can be broadly categorised as: infrastructure, public buildings, commercial buildings and private dwellings.117 Drawing on the work of significant urban theorists, including Jane Jacobs and Leon Krier, Saeidi and Oktay state that ‘an ideal neighbourhood that meets all users’ requirements is more likely to be in a format that is widely diverse in terms of form [both built and natural], use and user’.118 Therefore, individually and collectively, countless combinations and permutations of (diverse) people-(diverse) environment interactions transpire in day-to-day travel chains, with resultant impacts on the accessibility rights of people with disabilities.
The UMI is projected by its developers119 to be a powerful advocacy tool for people with disability and their representative organisations, succinctly summarising (by way of a number) the (in)accessibility of the existing built environment at neighbourhood scale and illuminating the policy environment contributing to same. An initial pilot study, testing the UMI and examining its strengths and weaknesses, was conducted in Kensington, Melbourne, Australia in 2011.120 It was broadly established that the tool can generate results and be undertaken in the field, albeit with some challenges.121 Consequently, it was intended that the tool, after immediate further development, be rolled out for use by, primarily, local government and DPOs. However, Green’s terminal illness status precluded further development at that time.
The Universal Mobility Index Tool
Although ‘human rights model of disability’ was not a common term at either UMI origin or Kensington pilot, the view that people with disability have a human right to fully use the neighbourhood built environment is central. An essential, and defining, feature of the UMI is the dual componentry of built environment and policy environment. These two components are scored, in line with standard indicator-to-index protocols, with resultant values being between 0.00 (very bad, fully inaccessible) and 1.00 (very good, fully accessible). The two component values are then averaged to obtain the (final) UMI score.
The built environment component captures a snapshot of people with disabilities’ lived experience of existing neighbourhood built environment accessibility. Built environment subcomponents are: infrastructure, public buildings, commercial buildings and private dwellings. Infrastructure is further segmented, as are various other subcomponents. Built environment accessibility assessment is undertaken by people with disability themselves, working in teams – another essential, and defining, characteristic of the UMI tool. The policy environment component captures a snapshot of human rights, disability discrimination legislation, and people with disabilities’ effective voice in policymaking in the pilot locality/country. Policy environment subcomponents deal with human rights and legislation, and policy and representation. In contrast to conventional access auditing, policy environment evaluation is essential to UMI application.
Essential stages involved in operationalising the UMI tool are summarised in Table 2.
The Kensington pilot was conducted in accordance with the above format. Built environment elements (n = 2101) within approximately 400–600 m in all directions from Kensington Station were classified and uniquely identified. Random sampling was applied at 90 per cent confidence interval and ±10 error (p < 0.1), and the locations of the sample elements were mapped. The pilot area was divided into segments corresponding to manageable assessment sessions of around 90 minutes. Site assessors, volunteers with a range of differing impairments affecting their mobility, worked in teams and used their own lived experience to come to a consensus on the accessibility of each element inspected. The resultant five-point ‘very bad’ to ‘very good’ Likert-scale data were converted, in line with standard indicator-index protocols, to values between 0.00 (very bad, fully inaccessible) and 1.00 (very good, fully accessible). The built environment component value in Kensington was 0.48. A policy environment questionnaire was distributed to a wide range of local government and NGO/NfP stakeholders; answers were a choice of: ‘yes’, ‘partially’ or ‘no’. This was then converted to an index value between 0.00 (would require all ‘no’ responses) and 1.00 (all ‘yes’ responses). The policy environment component value in Kensington was 0.64. The final UMI score, the average of the built environment and policy environment scores, was 0.56. Weightings were not applied to any score calculations.
Built environment classifications and disaggregations, and index values for both built environment and policy environment and their respective subcomponents, are shown in Figure 1.
Following calculation of all subcomponent scores and final score, participant input was sought regarding prioritisation of advocacy effort; infrastructure was unanimously considered to be the most important.
Concluding Remarks
Built environment performance assessment, in many guises, is already flourishing; it is not a weird idea. Increasingly, assessment is becoming interdisciplinary and multi-domained. The built environment at both the building scale and the urban realm is being investigated, mapped and modelled. Systematically investigating existing physical conditions, evaluating policy frameworks, and engaging the community are all well-established elements of measures aimed at improving built environment performance outcomes. But still, input from people with disability is rarely sought. Without neighbourhood-scale accessibility performance measurement tools aimed at evaluating lived experience, it is difficult to see how a well thought-out, rather than reactionary, programme of neighbourhood accessibility improvement can be determined. Informed by an understanding of the potency of disability models, the Universal Mobility Index offers a potential way forward to measure built environment accessibility performance at neighbourhood scale for people with disability. The validity of this proposition will be tested in further piloting to be undertaken as part of my current PhD studies.
Declarations and Conflict of Interests
The author declares no conflict of interests with this work.
Notes
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1 Newton, ‘Regenerating Cities’.
2 Rosso et al., ‘The Urban Built Environment and Mobility in Older Adults’; UN, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Ageing; Davis, The End of Normal; Villanueva et al., ‘The Impact of the Built Environment on Health across the Life Course’; Glanz et al., ‘Built Environment Assessment’; Pilkington and Ige, ‘The Impact of the Built Environment on Health’.
3 Jenks and Demsey, ‘Defining the Neighbourhood’; National Heart Foundation of Australia, Good for Busine$$; Bevan and Croucher, Lifetime Neighbourhoods; Sanaz and Oktay, ‘Diversity for Better Quality of Community Life’; Oliver et al., ‘Associations Between the Neighbourhood Built Environment and Out of School Physical Activity and Active Travel’; Medved, ‘The Structural Model of Autonomous Sustainable Neighbourhoods’; Ortolani, ‘The Importance of Neighbourhood for Urban Resilience’; Whitfield, ‘Measuring the Performance of Sustainable Communities’.
4 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
5 Castanheira and Braganca, ‘The Evolution of the Sustainability Assessment Tool SBTool’; Ameen et al., ‘A Critical Review of Environmental Assessment Tools for Sustainable Urban Design’; Gibberd, ‘Measuring Capability for Sustainability’; Newton, ‘Innovation for Sustainable Low Carbon Built Environment’; Arcadis, Chasing Mobility; Park et al., ‘Critical Review of the Material Criteria of Building Sustainability Assessment Tools’; UN Settlements Programme, Building Sustainability Assessment and Benchmarking; Bannister, ‘So We Have Done NABERS’; Boeing, ‘Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design’; Newton et al., ‘Precinct Information Modelling’.
6 Commonwealth of Australia, Equipment Energy Efficiency Program.
7 World Green Building Council, http://www.worldgbc.org/thecommitment.
8 World Green Building Council, http://www.worldgbc.org/thecommitment.
9 Windows Energy Rating Scheme, https://www.wers.net/werscontent/about-wers.
10 Water Rating, http://www.waterrating.gov.au/about/standards.
11 Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS), http://www.nathers.gov.au/.
12 National Australian Built Environment Rating System, https://www.nabers.gov.au/about/what-nabers.
13 Green Building Council Australia, https://new.gbca.org.au/.
14 International Passive House Association, https://passivehouse-international.org/index.php.
15 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, https://new.usgbc.org/.
16 The BRE Group, https://bregroup.com.
17 The Built Environment Sustainability Tool (BEST), http://builtenvironmentsustainabilitytool.blogspot.com/p/using-tool.html.
18 International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment, http://www.iisbe.org/sbmethod.
19 Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency, http://www.ibec.or.jp/CASBEE/english/.
20 G-SEED, http://www.kieae.kr/_common/do.php?a=full&b=12&bidx=156&aidx=1803.
21 Vietnam Green Building Council, https://vgbc.vn/en/about-vgbc/.
22 Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, http://www.grihaindia.org/.
23 International Living Future Institute, https://access.living-future.org/ilfi/about/history-0.
24 Living Future Institute, Australia, https://living-future.org.au/living-building-challenge/.
25 McManus and Taylor, ‘The Changing Nature of Life Cycle Assessment’; Guinee et al., ‘Life Cycle Assessment’.
26 Guinee et al., ‘Life Cycle Assessment’.
27 The Building Services Research and Information Association, https://www.bsria.co.uk/about/; The Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE), http://ishrae.in/newsdetails/ISHRAE-Releases-IEQ-Standard-/771; International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, https://www.isiaq.org/about_us.php; Building Occupants Survey System, Australia, http://www.bossasystem.com/.
28 Johnson, ‘Mirvac’s HQ at 200 George Receives Australia’s First International Well Building Institute Certification’; IWBI International Well Building Institute, ‘The WELL Building Standard Version 1.0.’
29 WELL v2, Pilot, https://v2.wellcertified.com/v2.1/en/overview.
30 IWBI International Well Building Institute, ‘The WELL Building Standard Version 1.0.’; WELL v2 Pilot, https://v2.wellcertified.com/v2.1/en/community/feature/13.
31 IWBI International Well Building Institute, ‘The WELL Building Standard Version 1.0.’; Newton, ‘Innovation for Sustainable Low Carbon Built Environment’; Bannister, ‘So We Have Done NABERS’.
32 Johnson, ‘Data, Occupant Wellbeing and Flexibility’.
33 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
34 Leff and Petersen, Beyond the Scorecard; Monzon, ‘Smart Cities Concept and Challenges’.
35 OECD, ‘Resilient Cities’.
36 O’Neill and Simard, ‘Choosing Indicators to Evaluate Healthy Cities Projects’; WHO and UN Development Programme, ‘Health in SDGs’.
37 Barrett et al., ‘The Ethical City’.
38 Department for Transport and Communities and Local Government, Manual for Streets; Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation, Manual for Streets 2; Heaslip et al., ‘Implementation of Road Safety Audit Recommendations’; Welle et al., Cities Safer by Design; Karndacharuk et al., ‘Analysis of Pedestrian Performance in Shared-Space Environments’; Karndacharuk et al., ‘Qualitative Evaluation Study of Urban Shared Spaces in New Zealand’; Geers et al., ‘Roads are Places Too!’; Arcadis, Chasing Mobility.
39 Murray and Wu, ‘Accessibility Tradeoffs in Public Transit Planning’; Gutierrez et al., ‘Using Accessibility Indicators and GIS to Assess Spatial Spillovers of Transport Infrastructure Investment’; Deloitte, Infrastructure Capability Assessment Transport.
40 Soubra and Antipolis, Bridging the Gap between Building Information Modelling and Geospatial Information; buildingSMART Australia and SIBA, Integration of Geospatial and Built Environment; Boeing, ‘OSMnx’; Newton et al., ‘Precinct Information Modelling’.
41 Babb et al., ‘Developing Neighbourhood “Walkability” Indices for Children’s Active Transport’; Schipperijn et al., ‘Dynamic Accuracy of GPS Receivers for Use in Health Research’.
42 El-Mekawy et al., ‘A Unified Building Model for 3D Urban GIS’.
43 Arcadis, Chasing Mobility.
44 Ewing et al., ‘Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities Related to Walkability’; Sipe et al., ‘Measuring Urban Form’; Ameen et al., ‘A Critical Review of Environmental Assessment Tools for Sustainable Urban Design’; Harvey and Aultman-Hall, ‘Urban Streetscape Design and Crash Severity’; Boeing, ‘Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design’.
45 Department for Transport and Communities and Local Government, Manual for Streets; Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation, Manual for Streets 2; Heaslip et al., ‘Implementation of Road Safety Audit Recommendations’; Welle et al., Cities Safer by Design; Geers et al. ‘Roads are Places Too!’
46 Brownson et al., ‘Measuring the Built Environment for Physical Activity’; Rosso, ‘The Urban Built Environment and Mobility in Older Adults’; Burton et al., ‘Good Places for Ageing in Place’; Appleyard, ‘New Methods to Measure the Built Environment for Human-Scale Travel Research’; Office of Policy and Planning, San Francisco Healthy Homes Project; Kent et al., Healthy Built Environments; Wilson et al., ‘Assessing the Built Environment Using Omnidirectional Imagery’; Frank et al., Health and the Built Environment; Geers et al., ‘Roads are Places Too!’; Rollings et al., ‘Measuring Physical Neighbourhood Quality Related to Health’; Glanz, ‘Built Environment Assessment’.
47 Appleyard, ‘New Methods to Measure the Built Environment for Human-Scale Travel Research’.
48 Kent et al., Healthy Built Environments.
49 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
50 Fisher, ‘Trends in Institutional Care of the Aged’; Wolfensberger, ‘The Origin and Nature of Our Institutional Models’; Imrie, ‘Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment’; Braddock and Parish, ‘An Institutional History of Disability’; Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’; Barnes and Mercer, Disability; Peace, ‘The Development of Residential and Nursing Home Care in the United Kingdom’; Higginbotham, ‘The Workhouse’; Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
51 Braddock and Parish, ‘An Institutional History of Disability’.
52 Braddock and Parish, ‘An Institutional History of Disability’; Wolfensberger, ‘The Origin and Nature of Our Institutional Models’; Barnes and Mercer, Disability; Imrie, ‘Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment’.
53 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’; Higginbotham, ‘The Workhouse’; Peace, ‘The Development of Residential and Nursing Home Care in the United Kingdom’; Fisher, ‘Trends in Institutional Care of the Aged’.
54 Imrie, ‘Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment’. 129.
55 Oliver, ‘Theories in Health Care and Research’; Scotch, ‘Models of Disability and the Americans with Disabilities Act’; Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’.
56 Nankervis, ‘Conceptions of Disability’.
57 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’; Oliver, ‘Theories in Health Care and Research’; Scotch, ‘Models of Disability and the Americans with Disabilities Act’; Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’; Stainton, ‘Intellectual Disability, Oppression and Difference’.
58 Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’; Stainton, ‘Intellectual Disability, Oppression and Difference’; Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
59 Hunt, ‘A Critical Condition’; Finkelstein, ‘Disability’; Finkelstein, A Personal Journey into Disability Politics; West, ‘What Do We Mean by Support?’
60 West, ‘What Do We Mean by Support?’
61 Soder, ‘Tensions, Perspectives and Themes in Disability Studies’.
62 Oliver, Social Work with Disabled People; Oliver, ‘Theories in Health Care and Research’; Oliver, ‘The Social Model of Disability’; Scotch, ‘Models of Disability and the Americans with Disabilities Act’; Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’.
63 Oliver, Social Work with Disabled People; Finkelstein, ‘Disability’; Oliver, ‘Theories in Health Care and Research’; Scotch, ‘Models of Disability and the Americans with Disabilities Act’; Pfeiffer, ‘The Conceptualization of Disability’; Soder, ‘Tensions, Perspectives and Themes in Disability Studies’; West, ‘What Do We Mean by Support?’
64 Quinn et al., Human Rights and Disability; Degener, ‘Disability in a Human Rights Context’.
65 Berghs et al., ‘Implications for Public Health Research of Models and Theories of Disability’.
66 Quinn et al., Human Rights and Disability; Bruce, ‘Which Entitlements and for Whom?’; Schindler, ‘Architectural Exclusion’; Berghs et al., ‘Implications for Public Health Research of Models and Theories of Disability’; Degener, ‘Disability in a Human Rights Context’.
67 UN, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
68 Bruce, ‘Which Entitlements and for Whom?’
69 Degener, ‘Disability in a Human Rights Context’.
70 UN, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
71 Australian Government, Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1992 (as Amended); Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
72 Imrie, and Wells. ‘Disablism, Planning, and the Built Environment’; Imrie, ‘Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment’; Ostroff, ‘Universal Design’; Imrie, ‘Doing Disability Differently’: Boys, Doing Disability Differently; Hamraie, ‘Universal Design and the Problem of “Post-Disability” Ideology’; Larkin et al., ‘Working with Policy and Regulatory Factors to Implement Universal Design in the Built Environment’; Boys, ‘Introduction’; Jackson and Green, ‘The Role of Access in Achieving Healthy Buildings’; McLaughlin et al., ‘Beyond Construction’.
73 Jackson and Green, ‘The Role of Access in Achieving Healthy Buildings’.
74 Jackson and Green, ‘Accessible Parking’.
75 Williams et al., Creativity, Design and Education; Heylighen, ‘About the Nature of Design in Universal Design’; Maturana, ‘Where is the “Problem” in Design Studio’.
76 Beza, ‘The Role of Deliberative Planning in Translating Best Practice into Good Practice’; McLaughlin, ‘Beyond Construction’; Larkin et al., ‘Working with Policy and Regulatory Factors to Implement Universal Design in the Built Environment’; Hamraie, ‘Universal Design and the Problem of “Post-Disability” Ideology’; Boys, ‘Introduction’.
77 Boys, ‘Introduction’.
78 Boys, ‘Introduction’.
79 Boeing, ‘Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design’.
80 Yigitcanlar and Dur, ‘Developing a Sustainability Assessment Model’; Castanheira and Braganca, ‘The Evolution of the Sustainability Assessment Tool SBTool’; Ameen et al., ‘A Critical Review of Environmental Assessment Tools for Sustainable Urban Design’.
81 Ewing et al., ‘Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities Related to Walkability’.
82 Sipe et al., ‘Measuring Urban Form’.
83 Ewing et al., ‘Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities Related to Walkability’; ECOVAST, Landscape Identification; Tudor, An Approach to Landscape Character Assessment.
84 Project for Public Spaces and Metropolitan Planning Council, A Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago, 1
85 Project for Public Spaces and Metropolitan Planning Council, A Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago; Dixon, Sustainable Urban Development to 2050; Carmona, ‘The Place-shaping Continuum’.
86 Pugalis, ‘The Evolutionary “waves” of place-shaping’.
87 Pugalis, ‘The Evolutionary “waves” of place-shaping’, 3.
88 Geers et al., ‘Roads are Places Too!’
89 Healthy Spaces & Places, The Healthy Spaces and Places Manual; VicHealth, ‘Arts and Social Connection’.
90 Deane, Shut Out.
91 Timperio et al., ‘Neighbourhood Physical Activity Environments and Adiposity in Children and Mothers’; Tappe et al., ‘Children’s Physical Activity and Parents’ Perception of the Neighborhood Environment’; Oliver et al., ‘Associations between the Neighbourhood Built Environment and out of School Physical Activity and Active Travel’; Gong et al., ‘Neighbourhood Green Space, Physical Function and Participation in Physical Activities Among Elderly Men’; Nyunt et al., ‘Objective and Subjective Measures of Neighborhood Environment (NE)’.
92 Rosenberg et al., ‘Outdoor Built Environment Barriers and Facilitators to Activity among Midlife and Older Adults with Mobility Disabilities’; Musselwhite, ‘To Keep Older People Active Pedestrian Accessibility Must improve’; Barnett et al., ‘Associations between the Neighbourhood Environment Characteristics and Physical Activity in Older Adults with Specific Types of Chronic Conditions’; Cerin et al., ‘The Neighbourhood Physical Environment and Active Travel in Older Adults’.
93 Philibert et al. ‘Conceptual and Operational Considerations in Identifying Socioenvironmental Factors Associated with Disability among Community-Dwelling Adults’; Cordier et al., ‘A Systematic Review Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of Measures of Social Inclusion’.
94 Philibert et al., ‘Conceptual and Operational Considerations in Identifying Socioenvironmental Factors Associated with Disability among Community-Dwelling Adults’.
95 Imrie and Kumar, ‘Focusing on Disability and Access in the Built Environment’; Surface, Towards Access Standards; Deane, Shut Out, 42; House of Commons, ‘Building for Equality’.
96 An example, based in Melbourne, is the All Aboard Network, which is concerned with people with disabilities access to (all forms of) transport throughout Victoria.
97 JENNY PEARSON & ASSOCIATES PTY LTD. Research of the Models of Advocacy Funded under the national Disability Advocacy Program.
98 Heart Foundation, https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/; Healthy Spaces & Places, The Healthy Spaces & Places Manual.
99 D’Haese et al., ‘The Association between Objective Walkability, Neighborhood Socio-Economic Status, and Physical Activity in Belgian children’; Lindelow et al. ‘What Limits the Pedestrian?’; Nyunt et al., ‘Objective and Subjective Measures of Neighborhood Environment (NE)’; Tilley et al., ‘Older People’s Experiences of Mobility and Mood in an Urban Environment’.
100 Priestley et al., ‘New Priorities for Disability Research in Europe’.
101 Centre for Disability Research and Policy, Report of Audit of Disability Research in Australia.
102 Realpe and Wallace, What is Co-Production?; Burkett, An Introduction to Co-Design; Sutto-Long et al., Co-Design for Community Inclusion.
103 Imrie and Wells. ‘Disablism, Planning, and the Built Environment’; Imrie, ‘Disabling Environments and the Geography of Access Policies and Practices’.
104 McSherry, Australia’s International Human Rights Obligation; Australian Law Reform Commission, ‘Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws’.
105 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
106 Coni-Zimmer et al., ‘Editorial to the Issue on Legitimization of Private and Public Regulation’; Howlett et al., ‘Policy Integration and Multi-Level Governance’; Tschoerner, ‘A Governance Approach to Sustainable Mobility’; Andersen and Larsen, ‘Social inclusion and Spatial Inequality in the City’.
107 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’; House of Commons, ‘Building for Equality’.
108 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
109 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
110 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
111 Boys, Doing Disability Differently; Imrie, ‘Doing Disability Differently’; Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
112 Chan and Cooper, ‘Governance in Construction’.
113 Green, ‘An Introductory Theoretical and Methodological Framework for a Universal Mobility Index (UMI) to Quantify, Compare, and Longitudinally Track Equity of Access across the Built Environment’; Jackson, ‘The Role of Access in Achieving Healthy Buildings’; Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
114 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
115 Jackson, ‘Models of Disability and Human Rights’.
116 Green, ‘An Introductory Theoretical and Methodological Framework for a Universal Mobility Index (UMI) to Quantify, Compare, and Longitudinally Track Equity of Access across the Built Environment’.
117 Green, ‘An Introductory Theoretical and Methodological Framework for a Universal Mobility Index (UMI) to Quantify, Compare, and Longitudinally Track Equity of Access across the Built Environment’; Jackson, ‘The Role of Access in Achieving Healthy Buildings’.
118 Saeidi and Oktay, ‘Diversity for Better Quality of Community Life’, 497.
119 Green, Jackson (author), and Visionary Design Development Pty Ltd, co-founded by Green and Jackson.
120 Forming part of the author’s master’s degree research project.
121 Jackson, ‘Assessing Accessibility in the Built Environment using a Participatory Approach’; Jackson, ‘The Role of Access in Achieving Healthy Buildings’.
122 As an example, in Kensington although ‘commercial buildings’ was the worst-performing built environment category, participants unanimously prioritised Infrastructure as the most important category at which to direct advocacy efforts.
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Figure and Tables
Kensington UMI results (Source: Jackson and Green, 2012).
Rating systems examples.
| Acronym | Name/Organisation | Description (Refer to Endnotes for Website/Control Entity/Further Information) | Country of Origin | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WERS | Window Energy Rating System | Rates and labels windows for annual energy impact on house, throughout Australia.9 | Australia | 1995 |
| WELS | Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards | WELS Standard and scheme powers and functions are legislated.10 | Australia | 2006 |
| NatHERS | Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme | Provides a ‘measuring tape’ estimating a home’s potential heating and cooling energy use.11 | Australia | 2003 |
| NABERS | National Australian Built Environment Rating System | Rates energy efficiency, water usage, waste management, and indoor environment quality of, mainly, commercial buildings and tenancies.12 | Australia | 1998 |
| Green Star | Green Building Council Australia | Multiple tools covering homes, various commercial building typologies, tenancies and communities.13 | Australia | 2003 |
| iPHA | The International Passive House Association | Research on, and development of, construction concepts, building components, planning tools and quality assurance for highly energy efficient buildings.14 | Germany | 1990 |
| LEED | Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design | For all building types, e.g. hospitals, data centres, historic buildings, and in design.15 | USA | 1993 |
| BREEAM | Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method | Sustainability assessment across built environment life cycle, i.e. new, in-use and refurbishment.16 | UK | 1990 |
| BEST | Built Environment Sustainability Tool | Purports to support integration of sustainability into urban built environments.17 | South Africa | 2013 |
| SB Tool | International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment | Generic framework for rating sustainable performance of buildings and projects.18 | Europe | 2007 |
| CASBEE | Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency | Assessment tools tailored to different scales: construction (houses and buildings), urban (town development) and city management.19 | Japan | 2001 |
| G-SEED | Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design | Korea-specific, comprehensive system similar to LEED.20 | Korea | 2002 |
| LOTUS | Vietnam Green Building Council | Framework for building designers to benchmark environmental performance.21 | Vietnam | 2005 |
| GRIHA | Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment | Assesses the performance of buildings against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks.22 | India | 2007 |
Essential stages of the Universal Mobility Index (UMI) tool.
| Stage | Description/Personnel/Tasks | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Assemble project support | Obtain LGA, DPO and community support. Form Project Support Group, majority membership to be people with disability. Define selected neighbourhood’s spatial boundaries. Meet 3–4 times, provide ‘secretariat’ services. |
| 2. | Pre-implementation focus group | Focus group with people with disability exploring lived experience, existing built environment accessibility, and prioritisation of improvement. |
| 3. | Mapping | Map designated area, categorise all elements and allocate identifiers. Generate and locate sample sites. Segment neighbourhood and devise most efficient routes. Undertaken by UMI tool developer. |
| 4. | Built environment assessment (onsite) | Site assessment in teams of 3–4 people with differing impairments, each team to have (minimum) wheelchair user and person with vision impairment. Session length, max. 1.5 hours. Participation protocols in place prior to commencement, but recruitment ‘just in time’. |
| 5. | Policy environment assessment | Completion, primarily by DPOs, of policy environment questionnaire. |
| 6. | Calculation of results | Accumulate and assemble data in required format. Undertake basic mathematical calculations, in line with standard indicator/index protocols. Undertaken by UMI tool developer. |
| 7. | Participants’ prioritisation | Prioritise (evidence-based) advocacy.122 |