Inclusive Infrastructure

INFRASTRUCTURE

Recorded by Sofie Pelsmakers, images by Essi Nisonen

KEY READINGS 

• Desire Lines: A Guide to Community Participation in Designing Places, Malone, Lesley, RIBA

• Resilience in the built environment: Key characteristics for solutions to multiple crises, Castaño-Rosa, Raúl, et al., Sustainable Cities and Society, Vol. 87, 104259, 12.2022.

• Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, Eric Klinenberg, Penguin

• Reclaiming Cities - Revolutionary Dimensions of Political Participation, Tarinski, Yavor, Black Rose Books

• Architecture and Participation, Peter Bundell Jones, Doina Petrescu, Jeremy Till, Taylor & Francis

INSPIRATIONAL BUILT EXAMPLES

• Makoko Floating School, Nigeria

• Assemble Studio, Granby Four Streets, Liverpool, UK

• Test Site Project, Kyrls Quay, Cork, Ireland

• Ash Sakula Architects, Canning Town Caravanserai, London, UK

• Raumlabor, Haus der Statistik, Berlin, Germany

INCLUSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

Designing inclusive infrastructures is an essential part of climate emergency design and is an iterative process that you need to see through all stages of your project design (i.e. explore, define, imagine, test and feedback). Inclusive infrastructures means that inhabitants are part of the design and decision-making process through democratic processes. It also means that spaces can be used and accessed by as many people as possible regardless of age, gender and ability, i.e. they are accommodating and welcoming all. A solution can’t be resilient by itself. It is only resilient when it is adopted and taken ownership of by the community and this is best done through inclusive bottom-up approaches. There are many ways you can include democratic processes and inclusive design in your project, even as a student. For example, you can create a ‘Democratic Design plan’; this helps you to Identify your users (human and non-human), acknowledge and involve your users and to create design approaches that care for your users (including nature & non-humans).