The aim of this study is to integrate the basic concepts of landscape urbanism and the principles of universal design approach in order to achieve an inclusive urban surface on the seafront of the Bosphorus. This study may be described as a reinterpretation of the European shore of the Bosphorus, reintroducing the sea to the daily life of stanbul&amp / #8217 / s inhabitants. Landscape urbanism refers to the architecture of an urban surface, a continuous landscape accommodating all kinds of structures and activities to enhance human experience. Universal design is an approach that celebrates human diversity and is often defined as the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. To achieve its goal, this study focuses on the concept of urban surface and the related design strategies described by Alex Wall, which might help to create inclusive environments. In this way, it attempts to put forward a framework for the implementation of universal design principles to urban scale. It not only evaluates the strategies of landscape urbanism from the perspective offered by the universal design approach, but also attempts to make a contribution to the common brainstorming about shaping the seafront of the Bosphorus.

Inclusive design is a concept intended to promote the development of products and environments equally usable by all users, irrespective of their age or ability. This research focuses on developing a method to derive heuristics for inclusive design. The research applies the actionfunction diagram to model the interaction between a user and a product, design difference classification to compare a typical product with its inclusive counterpart, graph theory to mathematically represent the comparison relations, and graph data mining to extract the design heuristics. The goal of this research is to formalize and automate the inclusive-design heuristics generation process. The rule generation allows statistical mining of the design guidelines from existing inclusive products. Formalization results show that, the rate of rule generation decreases as more products are added to the dataset. The automated method is particularly helpful in the developmental stages of graph mining applications for product design. The graph mining technique has capability for graph grammar induction, which is extended here to automate the generation of engineering grammars. In general, graph mining can be applied to extract design heuristics from any discrete and relational design data that can be represented as graphs. Concept generation studies are conducted to validate the heuristics derived in this research for inclusive product design. In addition, an inclusivity rating is created and verified to evaluate the inclusiveness of the conceptual ideas. Finally, appreciation and awareness about inclusive design is important in an engineering design course, hence, a module is compiled to teach inclusive design methods in a capstone design course. The results of the exploratory study and validation show that there is problem dependency in the application of the representation scheme. It cannot be stated with certainty at this point if the representation scheme is helpful for designing consumer products, where only the activities related to the upper body are involved. However, self-reported feedback indicates that the teaching module is effective in increasing the awareness and confidence about inclusive design.

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF MAT-BUILDING FOR THE CREATION OF UNIVERSALLY DESIGNED ENVIRONMENTS Eren, Yasemin M. Arch., Department of Architecture Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emel Ak&ouml / zer Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Halime Demirkan June 2004, 152 Pages The goal of this study is to reread the strategies of formal organization in architecture, which are called &ldquo / mat-building&rdquo / and &ldquo / mat-urbanism&rdquo / , exploring their potential to contribute to the creation of universally designed built environments in the 21st century. The idea of mat-building was first delineated by Alison Smithson in 1974, in her article &ldquo / How to Recognize and Read Mat-Building,&rdquo / by means of its traditional and modern examples. The concept of universal design was first used in 1970&rsquo / s and reinterpreted by the American architect Ronald Mace in 1985. Since then, it has become a widely accepted design approach that is also known as &lsquo / inclusive design&rsquo / and &lsquo / design for all&rsquo / . Mat-building can be considered as a viable design approach that can respond to the crucial need for equally accessible, adjustable and adaptable built environments for all people all over the world. The study aims not only to evaluate the exemplary mat like configurations in light of the universal design principles. It also tries to point to the new ways for developing creative ideas and design theories, and emphasizes the significance of implementing the universal design approach in contemporary architecture and urbanism.

This study has been carried out from two points of view: how museums have changed to adapt to new technologies and the inclusion of people with different disabilities as a target group when developing a new product. This study is done through a series of qualitative interviews made to museum staff and personnel related to the target group, belonging to working directly any of the groups in which the disabilities are divided. Through the study and the application of their answers and contributions as well as the data collected in previous studies, the development of an interactive-multimedia Lab was accomplished, which is installed in the museum Kulturfabriken in Skövde. In order to execute a product development process properly, an adequate methodology was developed, which combines working methods, focused directly on the elaboration of the product from the most practical point of view and analysis methods, which helped analyze the process in an appropriate way through the different interviews and meetings held with the focus groups, to make a customized product with the needs of the museum, but also to combine the needs of the groups with disabilities and special features such as: surround sound system and immersive space, in order to create a suitable multimedia space.

One of the more pressing long-term concerns for parents of children with a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD), such as autism, is financial management (Abbott & Marriott, 2012). Few of these people ever manage to attain a level of financial literacy that allows them to become fully independent. Value, in it’s current form, is just too abstract for many (Cheak-Zamora, et al. 2017). This problem is augmented by our financial institutions, who have neglected to offer these groups any form of accessible financial products, rendering any aspirations of becoming “financially independent” by these groups, as unattainable. This is detrimental to their well-being and sense of self. (Abbott & Marriott, 2012). With this in light, this thesis will firstly highlight the obstacles faced by these groups in achieving financial independence, secondly, it will present a new paradigm through which to look at value. A paradigm that understands that money isn’t about a number, but rather the complex social interactions that that govern our liberties as members of society. Finally, this thesis will present an example of a new breed of fiancial system, Olive. Making use of emerging distributed technologies, Olive presents a system that enables us to produce products that recognises the spectrum of needs and abilities our community contains.

Designers are required to evaluate their designs against the needs and capabilities of their target user groups in order to achieve successful, inclusive products. This dissertation presents exploratory research into the specific problem of supporting analytical design evaluation for Inclusive Design. The analytical evaluation process involves evaluating products with user data rather than testing with actual users. The work focuses on the exploration of a capability-demand model of product interaction as the basis for analytical inclusive evaluation. This model suggests that by comparing the measured sensory, cognitive and motor capabilities of a user population to the corresponding product demands, the degree of fit between users and products can be assessed. The research problem was addressed by firstly examining theories of human function and performance together with existing sources of user capability data. It was found that user capability data was fragmented and lacking in terms of predicting design exclusion and difficulty at the population level. More fundamentally, however, it was found that the relationships between measured capability in populations with low functional capacity and real world task performance with products (such as errors, times and difficulty) were not well understood. Given that an understanding of these relationships are necessary to guide capability data collection and to drive valid and robust analytical evaluation methods, the research effort focused on exploring these relationships via empirical and analytical studies. The research process culminated in an experimental study with nineteen users of various functional capability profiles performing tasks with four consumer products (a clock radio, a mobile phone, a blender and a vacuum cleaner). Measures of user capability were related to corresponding product demands (on those capabilities) and task outcome measures. A complex picture emerged, where linear relationships did not generally account for significant variance in task outcome measures. Further, it appeared that multiple capabilities were possibly interacting in unknown ways to support real world interaction. These indicative results point to the further investigation of multivariate and non-linear models for describing capability-demand relationships, and also the replication of similar studies with larger sample sizes to confirm the relationships observed. The resulting overall recommendation, therefore, is that there is a need to direct research efforts in this critical but largely unexplored area of capability-demand model building for Inclusive Design evaluation.

This design project places itself in the field of knit, smart textiles and inclusive design. Knitting is a technique that can create interactive objects, for children with autism that may need support to interact with their surroundings. Therefore, this work sets out to support these individuals, using objects that offer different tactile sensations, to provide focus and calmness. To achieve this, the aim is to design inclusive knitted objects that encourage individuals with autism to interact with knitted forms through stimulating textures, vibration, and colours. Through technical research on Shima Seiki, Dubied and Silver Reed, 3D objects with various bindings are developed to create stimulating textures. Sensors and other electronics are also investigated and integrated, to make the textiles smart. Further investigations are made using surveys with an autism community, to accommodate their needs during the design process. The result of this project is three textile objects that provide two kinds of stimulation. Two pieces which react to touch with vibration, and one object with different tactile textures. As well as knowledge about how to knit forms with textures, and how to insert electronics into knitted structures. It is also how people with autism can be helped by using the objects as tools, to facilitate sensory processing or non-verbal communication, in their everyday life.

When designing for the general population it is important to design inclusively in order to invite to participation in today’s digital society. With this study the widely used Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) gets investigated for its sufficiency in guidance towards inclusive design within mobile devices. Through a comparative analysis between the principles of WCAG and literature considering the effects of the limited attentional resources, deficits with WCAG are detected and discussed. Additionally, a parallel effort making a real-case with a WCAG adapted prototype based on a UX-design process is conducted in order to gain further insight and discussion. This process includes iterative sketching, persona-workshop, Service Blueprint-creation and usability testing. Findings show that WCAG does not fully consider the effects of the limited attentional resources. Recommendations are given for further scientific work in developing complementary guidance considering cognitive limitations to WCAG towards an inclusive design.

This dissertation investigates the accessibility of public architecture. The aim is to illustrate the relevance of accessibility by establishing a theoretical premise and applying it in design. The theoretical analysis defines inclusive design and examines the relevance of the topic within the South African context. It explores written theory on the topic and how it has evolved. The aim is to understand the implications of an inclusive design approach in architecture and to assess the inclusivity of recently completed buildings. The design investigation explores an exclusively inclusive approach in the design of a public building. The intent is to create a building that is inclusive; one that can be used by all. Currently, there is a lack of accessible public facilities in the Burger’s Park precinct, thus the Burger’s Park Opportunity Platform is proposed. The Opportunity Platform is a building that provides and facilitates the necessary resources for a community to prosper. It facilitates much needed community programmes and facilities such as literacy and skills training and access to books, the Internet and other media. The public nature of this building type implies that it is to be used by the entire community, which provides appropriate conditions to explore inclusive design in Pretoria. The study, through theoretical, empirical and contextual enquiry, provides an understanding of the principles pertaining to inclusive design and how it manifests in architecture. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Architecture / unrestricted

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