The benefit to providing accessibility and sensory guides for site visitors
Whether you are a site owner providing an attraction to the public or are the custodian of a heritage site/museum, Accessibility and Sensory Guides are fast-becoming a standard of the overall visitor experience in public recreation, entertainment, and educational settings. Working very much in the same way as a traditional leaflet or brochure, Access and Sensory Guides provide details of what there is to see and do at a particular space, while also offering information to visitors about inclusion and access. Typically, this would include provisions and modifications available that allow disabled people to participate, such as; Accessible walking routes provision Changing Places and Accessible WCs Cafes and refreshment areas Split-height information desks On-site staff availability Wayfinding and signage Accessible Parking Hazard identification As a team of disabled people ourselves, we understand what it’s like to want to go somewhere, arrive on site, and realize that due to a lack of accessibility…
Steven Mifsud MBE to speak at the MENA Transport Congress and Exhibition in the UAE
Direct Access founder Steven Mifsud will speak at the MENA Transport Congress and Exhibition, the leading event for sustainable urban mobility solutions in the MENA Region. It will take place in Dubai from the 28th February – 1st March 2024. This year’s event theme, “Sustainable Mobility and Wellbeing”, exemplifies MENA’s unwavering commitment to shaping a greener future for urban mobility, sustainability and improved wellbeing and quality of life for all. Representing Direct Access, Steven will attend as one of the event’s special guest speakers to discuss ways in which the local transport sector can move towards a sustainable and green future alongside seventy speakers from twenty countries. Drawing from our experiences delivering accessibility consultancy for some of the largest public transport companies in the United Kingdom, including Avanti West Coast, Transport for London, Transpennine Express, Steven will explore how sustainability cannot exist without first generating accessibility for all people to…
Direct Access and V&A East to deliver session on inclusive museum design at IMCC, Oman
DA founder Steven Mifsud MBE and V&A East Interpretation Lead Amy Davis will deliver a session at IMCC Oman where the pair are set to talk about the innovative new V&A East museum currently under construction in London. The new arts, innovation and education hub will provide a new immersive experience to take visitors behind the scenes and provide unprecedented public access to V&A collections. A short walk across the park, V&A East Museum celebrates global creativity and making relevant to today’s world. Working with the Direct Access team of disabled access consultants, V&A is integrating accessibility from designing interactives to integrating the real-life experiences of disabled artists, designers and creatives throughout the museums. V&A will focus on how artists and designers work to transform our world, to inspire young people. This session covers the approaches taken by V&A and Direct Access from initial design concept through to installation and…
The Direct Access Guide to Accessible Wayfinding
When we hear the phrase “wayfinding”, what most frequently comes to mind is the application and availability of signage in a particular environment, which is normally used to signify elements of a space that require visitor attention, or offer directional guidance in complex environments, such as shopping centers, hospitals, museums, theatres, apartment buildings, public parks, etc. However, this is only half the story. In actuality, the purpose of “wayfinding” covers much more than these factors since it pertains to our ability to comprehend and perceive the environment around us. In many ways, effective wayfinding is less about signage provision specifically but is better to be thought of as a tool that helps guide people to orient themselves, and positively influence their cognitive decision-making. Since navigation through a space is a multi-sensory “problem-solving” task that requires the use of four out of our five senses (smell is not often utilized but…
The public restrooms that set the world standard for accessibility
Depending on where you live, the accessibility, frequency, and sanitary quality of local public restrooms wildly vary. In the United Kingdom for example, it speaks to a specific lack of both care and understanding, that local authorities do not invest in accessible and clean public WCs, where not only are public toilets perceived as a symbol of the UK’s deteriorating and underfunded public infrastructure, but demonstrative of the lack of respect that we have as a nation towards cleaners, who are often the most low-paid workers in society. Despite being one of the most basic of human needs, the Public Toilet Index, a study by British Company Q Supplies, identified that the UK offers only fifteen public restroom facilities per one hundred thousand people. This falls massively short of countries such as Australia, with thirty-seven, and the world leader Iceland, with fifty-six. In Japan, cleaners are well-respected (and compensated) for…
A guide to curating inclusive exhibitions and museums
When we think about accessibility in the context of most built environments, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is whether wheelchair users can directly access the building via ramps, sufficiently wide doors, and elevators. But accessibility is, as we all know, involved much more than mobility access. True inclusion and accessibility means considering hundreds if not thousands of combinations of physical, emotional, and mental abilities that are unique to every individual – involving not only our dexterity and mobility, but our constitution, sensitivity to noise, sensitivity to light, our ability to use one or more of our five senses, and much more. Accessibility in the context of museums and exhibits adds an extra layer of complexity to the equation – because not only does the physical architecture itself need to be accessible, but how exhibits are presented also needs to be considered by site owners. What’s…
New academic journal highlights accessibility at Expo 2020 Dubai
A new academic journal released by the Springer Publishing Company this week has detailed feedback by disabled people (or People of Determination) on the accessibility of Expo 2020 Dubai. Expo 2020, which was held in the United Arab Emirates between October 2021 and March 2022, was a client of Direct Access for the entire duration of the event with firm founder Steven Mifsud MBE being responsible for on-site accessibility queries as a Director of Accessibility. Direct Access also provided construction consultancy, advising on the accessibility of the built environments before completion – drawing from international and newly released local design standards such as the Dubai Universal Design Code. The theme of the Expo 2020 Dubai was “Connecting minds, creating the future,” which aimed at bringing communities and individuals together to shape a sustainable, smart, and connected future. It was the first Expo ever to be held in the Middle East.…
How inclusive and accessible design leads to future-proof housing developments
What is inclusive design? In construction, inclusive design is a sustainable, inclusive, and cost-effective design practice, yet is also massively underutilised. For firms that do use inclusive design when approaching new builds, it presents an opportunity for site owners to create built environments that are massively beneficial to every individual in society who wants to live in a safe and sustainable home, but it is still not universally adopted despite that. This is in part due to building managers only wanting to meet the minimum legal requirements for accessibility, but also due to a lack of understanding of its benefits from a financial perspective. But what do we mean by inclusive design? As the term suggests, it represents an approach to housing construction that prioritizes universal accessibility, focusing on creating spaces that can cater to the needs of everyone, rather than just people with very specific access requirements. Inclusive design…
Steve Dering to discuss mental wellbeing and biophilic design at the Kuwait Diversity and Inclusion Summit
Direct Access Consultancy LLC is delighted to announce that our Director of Strategic Partnerships, Steve Dering, will be on a panel talking about mental well-being and biophilic design at the Kuwait Diversity and Inclusion Summit from the 5th – 6th February 2024 at the Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel, Kuwait. Steve will be one of many speakers who will gather to promote awareness, understanding, and engage in meaningful dialogue around the topics of diversity, inclusion, and equity within workplace environments. Profoundly deaf since birth and with over fifteen years of experience at a company with a team that consists almost entirely of disabled people (You guessed it, that’s us!), Steve will borrow from his personal journey as a disabled person to speak insightfully about several topics, including how having a disability impacts the experience of workplaces, ways that business owners can begin to increase diversity among their team, how to make the…
The health, environmental, and social benefits of Biophilic design
Biophilic design (from the Greek, ‘philia’ meaning ‘love of life’) is an environmental design choice which is being adopted by architects and decorators around the world for modern office spaces and desk-based work environments. Office spaces, though largely safe and unassuming compared to workplaces of past centuries still provide potential health hazards – the most common are a lack of sufficient air quality/ventilation and mental stress which often comes from a desk-based job where one looks at a glaring screen for several hours at a time. Emphasising our connection to the natural world, properly integrated biophilic design presents a solution to both of these issues, allowing employers and employees to benefit from the unique regenerative energy only flora and fauna can provide – integrating natural elements and colours which are calming to the mind and aesthetically pleasing to look at, making office blocks less imposing. While some buildings are sited…