Designing in the Dark

Designing the Multi-sensorial city. International workshop reconnecting designers with visually impaired and disabled

University of Sint Lucas, Ghent, Belgium

The workshop is sponsored by the local government. It’s planned from monday 15th November until wednesday 24th November.

Aims and objectives

Against the background of the European resolution on introducing the principles of universal design, the workshop provides a means to converge and to rethink educational programmes of all participating institutes. For instance, from the viewpoint of teacher mobility, the intensive programme offers yet another unique opportunity to ‘training the trainers’. Indeed, bringing together teachers from different backgrounds focusing on the key issue of ‘Designing in the Dark’ as a more user-oriented design paradigm, provides yet another opportunity to exchange, compare and critically reconsider educational and research strategies and tools in this particular field of studies.

 

The aim of the Intensive Programme is to improve the research and design skills of master class students in architecture, interior design and urban planning in addressing ‘user-oriented’ problems such as ‘ageing’ and ‘situational handicap’. Particularly targeted are students from all faculties who are participating in the META-joint-masters programme. The enthusiasm of both participating students and teachers vis-à-vis topic (Universal Design and Designing in the Dark) as well as approach (intensive workshop) on the one hand, and the successful involvement of external persons with various types of visual impairments (from blindness over colour-blindness to tunnel sight..), provided us with confidence to organise a knowledge transfer at the level of our joint masters Meta-university network.

For further details, please contact info@biourbanism.org or Prof. Antonio Caperna at antonio.caperna@biourbanism.org