Inclusive Spaces: Disability-Inclusive Design for Climate Resilient Cities

The climate crisis is changing our daily lives in cities and urban spaces, and we’re starting to focus more and more on sustainability and climate resilience in the built environment industry.

An ever-greater need for inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities is highlighted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG11), but we have limited urban design and planning tools to achieve these goals in practice – particularly when it comes to disability inclusion.

Disabled people are more likely to be impacted by the climate crisis and disasters, but design solutions and processes still often lack accessibility, and don’t meaningfully include disabled people in the design of a resilient future. This needs to change.

In this event, we’ll share evidence from the UK Aid funded AT2030 programme demonstrating the need for inclusive design to create climate resilience and sustainability. We’ll focus on case studies from inclusive cities in the Global South.

We’ll be joined by global experts who will share how the climate crisis is impacting disabled people, and what disability-inclusive and resilient solutions might look like.

As this session takes place in the weeks following the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, we will also reflect on progress in disability-inclusive climate action since last year’s COP26 conference and discuss priorities for the future.

About the speakers

Iain McKinnon, Director of Inclusive Design at the Global Disability Innovation Hub

Iain McKinnon is co-founder and Director of Inclusive Design at the Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub), a research and practice centre based at University College London (UCL) driving disability innovation for a fairer world. Iain originally trained as a Product Design Engineer and since 2005 has worked on inclusive design of the built environment, creating equally positive experiences for all end users regardless of ability, age, gender, race or faith. His work now focuses on creating inclusive and resilient cities in developing countries around the world.

Mikaela Patrick , Senior Inclusive Design Researcher, Global Disability Innovation Hub

Mikaela Patrick works across inclusive design and climate resilience and is the research lead on the UK Aid funded AT2030 Inclusive Infrastructure sub-programme, conducting six city case studies on inclusive design. Prior to joining GDI Hub, Mikaela worked with the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Stema Health and as an architectural designer in Spain and China. Mikaela also has experience in global health, working on inclusive, people-centred research and design projects around the world.

Shivani Gupta, Technical Officer, CBM International, India

Shivani Gupta works as Technical Advisor Inclusion with Christian Blind Mission (CBM. With a lived experience of disability, she has over 25 years of experience working in disability inclusion in low and middle-income countries with a special focus on creating accessible environments and disability inclusion in development and disaster management.

Anna Landre, PhD Candidate at UCL Department of Computer Science

Anna Landre is a disability justice activist and UCL PhD candidate focusing on the implementation gap of disability regulations globally, particularly in cities and during emergencies. She formerly served as a Commissioner in the Washington, DC government and was just named among the DisabilityPower100’s most influential disabled people in the UK.

Housekeeping

The Inclusive Spaces lecture series will be streamed live through Zoom. Please ensure you download Zoom and create an account prior to the event.

This session will be recorded and auto-transcribed. The recording along with the transcript will be sent to registered attendees after the event has ended.

If you have any accessibility requirements or additional queries, please contact Alma Daskalaki at a.daskalaki@ucl.ac.uk. Please note we require two working days’ notice for requests.