Abstract
Urban green areas are of fundamental importance for the mental and physical well-being of citizens. However, these areas are often designed without considering the needs of all users, especially people with disabilities and the elderly.
To fill this gap, the SHIP project aims at designing and developing urban furniture, rides, and tools for physical activity and leisure to make a public park inclusive, accessible, and sustainable. Sustainability is intended from both an environmental and social point of view. Considering the former, recycled materials will be used. Regarding the latter, the design will include every potential target visitor in the logic of inclusion, accessibility, and social safety. Here we mainly describe the first phase of SHIP, characterized by activities of participatory design. In particular, to understand users’ needs, expectations and to collect design requirements, a series of Focus Group sessions were conducted, involving users with disabilities, the elderly, and their caregivers.
Findings showed habits and preferences of the target users related to public parks and their equipment, e.g., urban furniture. The main issue that emerged concerned the inclusiveness and accessibility of urban green areas. Indeed, participants highlighted the presence of physical barriers and the separation between areas for all and zones for people with disabilities, which severely limited the process of socialization. Furthermore, users showed enthusiasm in being involved directly in suggesting potential solutions regarding supplies, playground, sports, and well-being aspects. Finally, we report a set of preliminary design guidelines for outdoor recreational settings.
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Acknowledgment
This work was partially supported by the POR FESR 2014–2020 Work Program of the Veneto Region (Action 1.1.4) through the project DGR n.711 titled “SHIP - Sustainable, Healthy and Inclusive furniture and games for Parks”.
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Bettelli, A. et al. (2022). SHIP Project: Designing Inclusive, Accessible, and Sustainable Urban Parks. In: Bettelli, A., Monteriù, A., Gamberini, L. (eds) Ambient Assisted Living. ForItAAL 2020. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 884. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08838-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08838-4_11
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