In principle, most people agree that public spaces should be welcoming, intuitive, and accessible to all. Yet for millions of individuals, navigating everyday environments, such as hospitals, town centers, transport hubs, libraries, leisure facilities, and council buildings can be stressful at best and, in some cases, entirely unmanageable. While this is often associated with physical disabilities, the challenge is even greater for people living with dementia or memory impairment. In this blog, we will make the case for better accommodating these individuals, arguing that doing so is not only a moral responsibility but also a sound business decision.
First, let’s outline the problem and look at how it came to be in the first place. Various reasons can be attributed to a broad lack of accessibility in urban planning and building design. As a team of accessibility consultants, we find it usually boils down to one of two fundamentals informing these poor design choices; ignorance, which accounts for a lot the inadvertently hostile architecture of yesteryear (think older cities like London or Paris) where disabled people had little to know rights or expectations, which meant urban planners lacked inspiration and reason to design for the breadth of human diversity. Or the most common by current decision-makers; supplementation. That accessibility is an annotation or afterthought to be bolted on at the end of the design process due to perceived unimportance or the associated cost. These reasons not only inform the lack of consistent architectural accessibility within our society but explain why many site owners are so unsuccessful at tapping into the expendable income of our disabled population.
Inclusive wayfinding, dementia-friendly environments, and robust design choices are not “nice to have” extras; they are essential foundations of truly public-facing organisations, which provide their own benefits to both the public who need them to interact and the businesses whose responsibility it is to provide them.
For the provider, it encourages retention of interest in the site itself, which is crucial for business owners who operate a physical site that the public engage with. It also reduces staff time spent giving directions or managing distress, increases dwell time and repeat visits, and improves the reputation of the site’s owners as inclusive, progressive, and serious about visitor satisfaction, whoever that person might be.
And for the user, whether they have dementia or any disability for that matter, it improves satisfaction and trust, creates predictability and assurance, helps users feel confident they are on the right path, and encourages logical layouts that reduce unnecessary decision points and dead ends. An inclusive approach to design can even make the layout of a site more appealing to first time visitors, older adults, and parents with children. When wayfinding is inclusive and embedded at the earliest stage, it can truly benefit everyone.
With rates rising, creating dementia-friendly environments is not an option as much as it is as much a given as installing windows. Futureproofing for accessibility protects your building, reducing costs of adaptation later when legislation and government-embedded legal obligations enter the picture. Any architect who is worth his or her salt has a duty to ensure that people can remain independent, engaged, and confident for as long as possible, particularly considering our aging population.
So, what exactly can be done to increase the accessibility of buildings in such a way that they benefit those with dementia?
Some clear examples include:
· Reducing visual clutter and unnecessary patterns
· Using contrasting colours to highlight doors, handrails, and key features
· Avoiding reflective surfaces that may cause confusion or fear
· Ensuring signage is legible, familiar, and positioned at appropriate heights
· Designing calm, well-lit spaces with clear sightlines
Crucially though, implementing dementia-friendly environments support the providers most of all. It reduces the need for visitors’ constant assistance, which ironically can come at a more considerable, less sustainable cost. By embedding inclusive wayfinding, dementia-friendly principles, and regular accessibility audits into organisational culture, you can send a powerful message: everyone belongs here.
If you suspect that your building does not meet the appropriate standards which protect you from failing short of current accessibility requirements, booking an accessibility audit as soon as possible is instrumental.
In shaping a dementia-friendly environment, and we believe that audits are most effective when they consider diverse lived experiences, including those of disabled people, who are the invaluable bedrock of our team. When we work with clients on creating accessible buildings, the result is not just a more accessible building, but a more welcoming and functional organization overall, protecting you and your visitors.
Check out our accessibility audit options here.