Planning

60-Minute Education Session

Public Practitioners

SUN-A05 - ADA to Universal Design: Creating Healthy Communities Through Equitable Design Approaches

1.00 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AIA/HSW, AICP, FL, NY/HSW, CMAA

Lead Speaker(s)

• 

  Peter Caldwell, ASLA

  Senior Designer
  Asakura Robinson

Speaker(s)

• 

  Luis Gerardo Guajardo, Jr., AICP

  Senior Planner
  Asakura Robinson
• 

  Jesus Lardizabal

  RAS, President
  Altura Solutions

If our goal is to develop a community that is accessible to all, why do we only use the minimum requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act? We will examine the current approach to accessibility and look at simple, intuitive strategies for developing a complete community, with access as an integral component.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine compliance with current ADA regulations and deficiencies resulting from designing solutions as an afterthought.
• Explore options for creating fully accessible and equitable neighborhoods through a paradigm shift in the design approach toward universal design.
• Discuss the scalability of this approach using methods of determining areas of needed improvements at a city level and applying them at a project level.
• Discuss how our designs can discriminate against people with disabilities when only looking at minimum requirements as standards.