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mic hel .pue ch @

p aris -so rbo nn e.frJoint Management Committee and Working Group Meeting

Dublien, Ireland - 1st and 2nd July 2013

Users Needs: Role for Universal Design in Cities

Gerald Craddock, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design

Onny Eikhaug, Norwegian Design Council

Michel Puech, Sorbonne

made on a PC with LibreOffice

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ethical dimension

the ethical dimension of Universal Design and TU1204

ethics?

not (no longer) a luxury item, dispensable

no virtue-washing, after green-washing

but: a delicate factor, with an explosive (counterproductive) potential

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technoethics for TU1204

UD + TU1204 in this perspective

redress the balance with technology and technocracy

“promoting collaborative urbanism through the digital world”: a techno-ethical action program

my current research: technoethics of smart devices and environments

importance of contexts and context-design for ethics

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springtime

a Turkish and Brazilian Spring

Istanbul’s Taksim Square / Brazil's current street demonstrations

questioning the meteorological situations behind it

the Turkish spring was ignited by an urban space management project, typically top-down

the Brazilian spring embraces public transportation fares and the future soccer World Cup investments and construction planning

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springtime

= a Universal Design / TU1204 spring

fueled by indignation (the social change fuel)

but it is a negative notion, the negative of what?

of dignity MARGALIT Avishaï, The Decent Society, Harvard U.P., 1996

CASTELLS Manuel, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Cambridge: Polity, 2012

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infosphere

vocabulary:

hardware

software

→ “wetware” (human, people)

→ “selfware”

technology as a resource for universal access and participation →

the proximal infosphere provided by smart ICT devices

embedded in global infospheres

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design / values

my point:

“There is a danger that Design may be perceived as a top-down framing and shaping of devices and environments, conveying a tinge of technocracy and paternalism that does not fit in the picture we have of the new sets of common values. It is crucial to consider how Universal Design will fit into the emergent values of the 21st century”

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values

4 emergent e-values:

facilitation

transparency

collaborative processes

end-user design and generativityZITTRAIN Jonathan, The Future of the Internet: And how to stop it, Yale UP, 2009: "Generativity is a system's capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences."

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values

from Californian to Scandinavian spirit

Ireland as a middle-place

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online social production as the values framework and practical tool

BENKLER Yochai, The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom, Yale U.P., 2006 - http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf

Scandinavian U.D. implementation (see Onny): “open access” in the physical world

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values

1) user end:

collaborative processes, end-user design and generativity

question: how can every person feel involved in the co-conception of her material environment?

answer: a wiki-environment

contributive, from disseminated initiatives, using disseminated e-devices to collect and compile suggestions and micro-assessments

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values

2) designer end: my favorite idea in UD:

every human is not a young (rich) anglophone male in perfectly good health

→ apply it not only to the user-end, but to the designer-end:

what if: the designer is not a young (rich) anglophone male in perfectly good health

imagine a material environment mostly designed by old (poor) sick ladies from Asia or Africa...

it would terminate the automobile civilization, for one thing