BEYOND THE TANGIBLE
Designing to support self-esteem and well-being in specialised accommodation
Background
The information within this website is presented to assist service providers, residents and designers as well as researchers and educators to become awareof the potential role and impact of physical settings on how people with disabilities (especially cognitive impairments) live their everyday lives.
The information was gathered through a multipronged research strategy. This provided insights into the role of domestic design on the quality of life for people with disabilities now and in the future.
What has become evident is that there are aspects of various current forms of accommodation which are still under researched and thus poorly understood. The members of the project steering group hope that through our sharing of this knowledge that positive change in the future can be facilitated.
Our Aim
The aim of this project is to improve the quality of domestic environments for people with disabilities, and thereby enhance their wellbeing.
Objectives
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To establish a knowledge bank of best practice for accommodation design for people with disabilities through literature reviews and residential design precedent studies.
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To address environmental attributes that not only deal with practical or pragmatic concerns but also address the less tangible dimensions (referred to as intangible attributes) of residents’ quality of life (QOL) and wellbeing.
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To engage end users and stakeholder groups to establish key criteria for suitable accommodation designs to serve their needs.
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To provide principles and guidelines for these intangible aspects of residential design to assist providers and designers to develop environments that support the resident's wellbeing
Environmental Attributes
This website focuses on the findings of a research project which investigates the INTANGIBLE attributes.
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It provides access to findings from what has been written on the topic:
LITERATURE
Examples of buildings and interiors from design firms and service providers: PRACTICES
And an overview of the synthesis of information from interviews, audits of existing homes, discussions with providers and other stakeholders, as well as the precedents and literature.
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The latter is presented visually to help capture the principles embedded in the findings: VISUAL RESEARCH