Portland is preparing to settle a class action legal dispute with mobility-disabled residents by agreeing to upgrade more than 16,000 sidewalk ramps at a cost of $113 million over the next 12 years.
The history of curb cuts teaches us important principles when it comes to designing, as well as, acknowledging what we consider “normal”.
Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.
