The building process as a tool towards an all-inclusive school. A Swedish example focusing on children with defined concentration difficulties such as ADHD, autism and Down’s syndrome

Abstract

Professionals who take part in the building process have long been concerned with the same environmental factors, e.g. spatial layout, capacity, and function, as well as user demography. Through the knowledge gained on the ways environmental factors affect users of buildings, the need to understand how to handle these factors has grown, due to their influence on the building process. It will be shown how research on the

Design considerations for the autism spectrum disorder‐friendly Key Stage 1 classroom

“… As commonly noted (Woodcock et al ., 2006; Khare and Mullick, 2008; Tufvesson and Tufvesson, 2009), because of their disability, those with ASD can find it hard to communicate freely. The age of the majority of the children, five to eight, would render objectivity extremely difficult. As outlined by Whitehurst (2006b), environments designed for those with ASD not only impact upon the individual but also for the teacher/carer. An environment where staff too can feel at ease is extremely important.…”

“…As commonly noted (Woodcock et al ., 2006; Khare and Mullick, 2008; Tufvesson and Tufvesson, 2009), because of their disability, those with ASD can find it hard to communicate freely.…”

“…Finally, to allow further analysis and understanding, a checklist of factors was also employed, based largely on Tufvesson and Tufvesson (2009) and used to gain a greater understanding of each classroom environment visited.…”

Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design Thinking and Methods

“…With the increased awareness of the physical environment and its profound impact on an autistic person's everyday life, there are a growing number of designers working in this area within different environmental contexts, such as schools [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] multi-sensory environments [63] housing [64][65][66][67] and outdoor spaces ( [68][69][70][71][72][73]. Inspired by her autistic brother Marc, Decker's urban design project used a theoretical urban systems toolkit to evaluate how inclusive the city of Nashville, Tennessee, was for autistic people [74].…”

A designer's approach: how can autistic adults with learning disabilities be involved in the design process?

“…More recently, there have been a growing number of design researchers who are considering the physical environment as an important point of intervention for people living with autism, by improving the design of schools (Beaver 2003(Beaver , 2011Gumtau et al 2005;McAllister and Maguire 2012;Mostafa 2008;Tufvesson and Tufvesson 2009;Vogel 2008), supported living accommodation (Ahrentzen and Steele 2009;Brand 2010;Kanakri 2013;Lopez and Gaines 2012;Woodcock et al 2006), outdoor spaces (Gaudion and McGinley 2012;Linehan 2008;Herbert 2003;Hussein 2010;Menear, Smith, and Lanier 2006;Sachs and Vincenta 2011;Yuill et al 2007) and most recently a town (Decker 2014). Despite this emerging field, for some of these studies importance was placed on the design outputs and generic design guidelines, with little emphasis on the process of how they evolved and attention paid towards the participation of people living with autism within the design process.…”