Inclusive Spaces for Equitable Interior Design Practice

Renae N Mantooth (North Carolina State University)
Rebekah Radtke (University of Kentucky)

The practice of environmental design is arguably a public service profession. To address this responsibility, inclusive practices should be incorporated in the design process from the initial phase of a project. However, gender and racial inequity in practice (AIA, 2016) and the exclusion of end users from architectural discourse and design (Hill, 1999) can inhibit the pursuit for inclusive spaces. Designers should take a step further than universal design to create places that not only match diverse user’s abilities, but also create spaces that end-users feel a heightened sense of belonging, comfort, and psychological well being. The purpose of this study is to adapt the principles of inclusive design for digital technology as one-size-fits-one (Treviranus, 2018) to the process of designing the built environment to create functional and meaningful places. Characteristics of equitable design practices are rooted in the appreciation and respect of human differences, transparent/co-design processes, and realization of adaptive contextual systems (Inclusive Design Research Centre, 2018). The question driving this study is, how can interior designers create inclusive places through their processes? Inclusive design emphasizes 1) ensuring the experts at the drafting table are marginalized end-users 2) facilitating an iterative process that encourages communication, adaptability, and flexibility 3) evaluating the designed environment to inform interconnectedness and user-continued design (Inclusive Design Research Centre, 2018). Ultimately, through inclusive design, design projects should be iterative, adaptive, and thoughtful to create optimum places within a specific context for collective diversity. Through the inclusive design process, designers can facilitate physical environments that provide support for the inclusion of diverse environmental affordances to promote inclusion of all end-users. Designers have a societal responsibility to not only serve the functional needs of users in the spaces we create, but to also design environments where all human beings, specifically those at the margins, can flourish.