The Inclusive Design Team is a newly formed specialist team within Foster + Partners’ Technical Design Group. Working closely with the studios, they promote inclusive design principles that are aligned with project goals and the practice’s standards. The team is championing an evolution from architecture’s compliance-focused accessibility model to an approach that is shaped by people-centred design and lived experiences.
Suzan Ucmaklioglu, Inclusive Design Specialist, Foster + Partners, said: “At Foster + Partners, we believe that the built environment should be for everyone. We are striving to creatively embed inclusive design from strategy to completion, thinking beyond technical code compliance, and embracing diversity in mind, body, and space.”
The team recently initiated a user research project with Sociability, who help disabled people find accessible places and is working to change the way people think about accessibility. As part of this project, the team revisited the Imperial War Museum with a focus group, to understand how people with disabilities experience the space today. These conversations will feed back into the practice’s design guidance and inform its approach to future projects.
Foster + Partners’ phase 1 masterplan for the Imperial War Museum involved the sensitive refurbishment of the existing museum, improving access and circulation, opening the interiors to daylight and views and establishing direct links with the surrounding park. The floor of the atrium was lowered to park level, in anticipation of a future phase of development, in which the approach to the building will be scooped out to create a single, accessible entrance for all below the existing portico stair.
Austin Relton, Head of the Technical Design Group, Foster + Partners, added: “User research projects like this one are so important, as they focus on peoples’ experiences of the built environment and act as a catalyst for conversations about achieving future-proofed resilient design for all.”
Watch the video to learn more about the project with Sociability -
