Caring for human diversity and built heritage through design: a multiple case study enquiry

Inclusive design aims to accommodate as many people as possible by considering the diversity of human abilities and conditions during design. This raises challenges in relation to built heritage: proposals to make it more inclusive may encounter objections from conservation authorities. Our research aims to (1) explore this tension between the conservation of built heritage and the ambition to make the built environment more inclusive and (2) identify strategies that allow addressing it. Based on existing research, we first examined how the domains of inclusive design and built heritage conservation are related, where they conflict and strengthen each other, as well as how researchers with different backgrounds suggest to address them. Second, we studied six building projects, all located in Flanders, where built heritage and inclusive design meet. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we relied mainly on desk research. We identified challenges and issues that came forward in the development of these projects as well as strategies adopted to address them. Two cases – the focus of this paper – illustrate how built heritage can be an asset to provide high-quality care. Confronting them with four cases located on a historic university campus makes clear that built heritage can be made more inclusive, and might even contribute to inclusive design, and that this involves a time consuming process with transdisciplinary input.