Geography and Environment, University of Southampton cordially invites you and a guest to our 2012/13 seminar series lecture ‘Disability and the barriers to inclusion in the designed environment’
This lecture is to be given to mark the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Monday 3 December 2012 at 18:00 in Lecture Theatre A (room 1041), Shackleton Building 44.
Drinks reception at 17:30 in the undercroft.
For more information and RSVP please contact:
Sarah Dack, Faculty Events and Communication Officer
Faculty of Social and Human Sciences
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 2522
Email: [email protected]
Despite years of campaigning by disabled people and their organisations for laws and policy measures to enable the design and construction of accessible environments, many public places remain out of reach and unusable. This situation is being worsened by the Coalition government’s policies to dismantle the planning system and the threat to eliminate important building regulations, such as Part M that specifies minimum standards of access to buildings for disabled people. In this presentation, I consider why so little has been achieved in relation to disabled people’s rights to access the environment, and what ought to be done to ensure that accessible spaces and places can be crafted.
Rob Imrie is Professor of Geography at King’s College London and former Director of the Cities Group. He was previously Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway University of London. His background is in geography, sociology, and planning studies and he has a doctorate in industrial sociology. His main research interests are the geographies of disability and the built environment, and urban design and the codification and regulation of architecture. He also has interests in urban governance and community development in cities, and the impact and implications of urban policy in British and international cities. He is author of Accessible housing: quality, disability and design (2006, Routledge, London), co-author of Inclusive Design (2001, Spon Press, London), author of Disability and the City (1996, Sage, London. Other relevant disability publications include: Imrie, R. (2012) ‘Universalism, universal design and equitable access to the built environment’ Disability and Rehabilitation, 34 (10): 873-882.