Inclusive and Sustainable Design in the Built Environment: Regulation or Human-Centred?

Reliance on building regulations and environmental standards has been the prime mechanism by which design quality, safety and sustainability are promoted in the built environment. This extends to accessibility standards designed to achieve more inclusive design for disabled users and residents. However, professional guidance and standards have produced a fragmented system, with the client-design-construction-maintenance-occupier chain stretched by arms-length housing management and contractor-led design operation, leaving the architect low down in the decision-making and power relationship, and residents largely absent from the design and delivery processes. In the shadow of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, this article considers the evolution of inclusive design and parallels in the built environment. These design approaches are contrasted with the highly codified basis for sustainable design which has looked to technological and material solutions to environmental performance, but less so, to human experience, needs and agency.