Created by the American architect Ron Mace in the 1980s, the concept of Universal Design deals with the perception of the projects and environments that we design and inhabit, considering the possibility of its use by different user profiles: from children to the elderly, including language limitations and people with disability or temporary limitations.
Universal Design is a concept that proposes the creation of spaces with democratic use, guaranteeing egalitarian conditions in terms of quality of service. The main goal of Universal Design is to allow everyone to use them to the fullest extent possible without the need for adaptations. Considered a concept that applies to architecture and other areas such as product design, Universal Design serves people considering their characteristics, age and individual abilities.
While architectural accessibility can be understood as a design tool to ensure conditions of use for different groups of people, Universal Design brings a broader perspective to architecture, becoming a design concept from the beginning of the process. Through Universal Design, architecture projects ensure that everybody has the same opportunities and spaces without adaptations, exceptions, or different routes.
Ron Mace and a group of architects who study the subject came to define seven principles to guide and help understand what Universal Design is. First, the Universal project, product or object must be egalitarian, that is, ensure the use of people with different skills, such as sliding doors that open automatically via a sensor. Second, the design must provide use flexibility, accommodating different abilities and allowing people to choose the best way to use it.
The third principle is simple and intuitive use, which means being easy to understand, regardless of each person's experiences or language skills. Fourth: the universal design must be easy to understand and must be able to communicate, inform and instruct anyone. The fifth principle provides that projects or products are error tolerant, mitigating the consequences and protecting people. The sixth principle deals with the need for low physical effort. Finally, the last one guarantees the scope of access, use and manipulation of spaces and objects, always considering the different existing bodies.
For architecture, this means designing spaces that are receptive to children, adults and the elderly, people with the most diverse appearances and conditions of comprehension and locomotion. Besides accessibility standards, architecture can take advantage of ramps as architectural paths, for example, or even use wayfinding as a tool, thinking of textures, colors and materials as important constructive elements not only for aesthetics but also in communication and stimulation.
Universal Design guides inclusion, not only as an appendix to the standard use but transforming the standard itself, ensuring broad use by all groups, profiles and existing bodies, bringing accessibility as an irrevocable tool. Almost 40 years after its creation, we can still add new guidelines to be discussed in this universality, such as socioeconomic inclusion, race or gender. One of today's challenges in architecture is understanding how to design for broader and more diverse audiences.
