Universal Design and Low Carbon: A Symbiotic Relationship

When school feels like an institution, students feel institutionalized. This underscores the importance of providing biophilia-rich environments that reduce stress, improve well-being, and foster student community and belonging in schools designed for universal access. Two recently completed case studies illustrate universal design that is amplified by low carbon, high-performance building strategies. The Creekside Center renovation at the University of California, Berkeley, transformed a modest, wood framed building into a new home for the University’s Disabled Students’ Program. Washington School for the Deaf’s campus expansion leveraged mass timber to center the Deaf experience in a fully accessible K-12 learning environment that engages the whole student through heightened sensory experience, responsively tuned to each program, pedagogy and purpose. This session will highlight perspectives of the owner and architect to demonstrate how low carbon and universal design strategies align to create highly tuned buildings for communities historically marginalized from the design of the built environment. Attendees will learn how inclusive design and technical research complement each other, creating welcoming and safe buildings for students and staff with disabilities. The panel will share examples of how carefully curated accessibility features can be seamlessly integrated into a building’s architecture, and how low carbon strategies support universal design goals. Focus areas include: • How designers can learn from the communities they serve through community-led engagement processes • Addressing “dueling disabilities” to accommodate diverse users who benefit from differing physical and perceptual environments • Low carbon strategies that extend the peripheral reach to the built environment • Structural, mechanical, and electrical systems that improve user control and adaptation • How exposed wood finishes and thoughtful material selection impacts health beyond indoor air quality to foster safety and improve spatial awareness • How owners and institutions can implement planning, design and construction processes that prioritize universal design thinking