Universal Design Award prämiert Fachbuch "Inklusion Gestalten"

The book ‘Inklusion gestalten’ (Designing Inclusion) has received the Expert Award at the ‘Universal Design Award’. For 15 years now, the organisation has been awarding prizes to designers, architects, students, universities, research institutions and schools whose products, services and architecture are characterised by their cross-generational, broad, simple and intuitive usability and thus create access, self-determination and participation.

The HAWK Hildesheim publication is the result of an intensive examination of the topic of inclusion from various design perspectives. Because: ‘Dealing with inclusion in design is not the cherry on the cake, but a matter of course. At least it should be, because regardless of whether you look at the European Accessibility Act, the German constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or your own understanding of design: Inclusion is not only desired, it is demanded. And rightly so.’

For this reason, the Faculty of Design has emphatically put inclusive design on its agenda. Over the course of several semesters, an interdisciplinary team worked on the framework conditions required for projects to be conceived and realised inclusively - and which didactic formats and methods are useful for making design teaching more inclusive. The publication is not the conclusion of the project, but rather opens up a dialogue between universities, experts and designers.

Over several semesters, Prof Barbara Kotte, Prof Andreas Schulz, Prof Günter Weber, Tobias Witt and Tiemo Brants explored the following key questions: What framework conditions do projects need in order to think and implement them inclusively? Which didactic formats and methods make inclusive design teaching possible in the first place? How can inclusion be sustainably integrated into design processes and design teaching? What are the current positions on this topic? Which methods can be used for inclusive participation?

The book contains specialised texts from the fields of communication design, interior design, product design and advertising. It deals with inclusion, participation, universal design, orientation systems, typography, shop design, urban design, plain language and inclusive design theory. The accompanying method book also provides suggestions on how selected design methods can be modified so that they are suitable for a participatory and inclusive design process. The publication was realised in the HAWK project laboratory under the direction of Dipl.-Des. Tatjana Rabe, published by Fruehwerk Verlag and is also available digitally for screen readers. It was funded by the Innovation Plus programme of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture.

With contributions from Florian Adler, Thomas Bade, Tom Bieling, Tiemo Brants, Ulrike Dammann, Andrea Döring, Barbara Kotte, Christiane Maaß, Isabel Rink, Maria Scherlies und Svenja Schulz, Andreas Schulz, Günter Weber, Tobias Witt and Peter Woltersdorf.

via HAWK